73 – Boarding

30F, Middle Area Resort

Most Regulars that wanted to attend the Workshop Battle had arrived in the designated residence area, checked into hotels.

The actual tournament would be on the Archimedes, a giant floating ship owned by the Workshop that was also its headquarters on this Floor.

I hid myself and then sent out some bird familiars and three Cubes, the limit of my Avatar Body, to begin surveillance.

Thanks to Androssi I already knew where Team Ship was staying, though several of them were out. Through Yihwa, I knew where she was, but Wangnan's team had split up too.

Yihwa plus Gyetang, Goseng, and Akraptor were on the observation deck, Prince and Miseng had gone off on their own because they were afraid of heights, while the rest were still at their hotel.

For Viole's team, all I had to do was ask on my own Emily app. She pointed me to FUG's current hotel, and I soon found Cassano who was outside.

It took a while longer to locate the actual floor the FUG team was staying on.

Through the window, one of the dark figures inside noticed my bird. However, they didn't do or say anything that I could see.

Suddenly the voice of the Workshop Battle host, Io, was broadcasted by speakers throughout the area, the symbol of the Workshop showing on various outdoor screens.

A game was starting right now, for the right to get on the Archimedes. The rules were a bit complicated. We'd all get a gun with two modes, and one bullet. The dark mode would cause another Regular to fail when the bullet hit but send the shooter up. The light mode could only be activated if you had more than one bullet, and it could be used to send other Regulars up, after stealing extras from somebody else. But we could only use our own guns, and if you lost your original bullet you'd fail, so you couldn't just hand your own bullet to your teammate to shoot you in light mode. In order to send teammates up, it was necessary to steal bullets from others first.

The first successful dark mode shooter would win the Blood Tamara. Whoever sent the most other people up would win the White Heavenly Mirror. And whoever shot the roaming fairy Bong Bong would get a special prize.

A minute countdown on our Pockets started, with the rules being sent to us as well. A gun appeared next to my Pocket. I had several E-Rank Pockets now, aside from the B-Rank Pocket Headon gave me. The Pocket which held my registration for the Battle had been with Androssi linked to Axie, but I'd transferred the registration to the one that was linked with my Avatar Body, so the gun appeared there.

Which might be a slight problem if they considered that body to be me for qualification purposes. If it was shot, Would I get disqualified?

Not that it mattered to me, since I could also get on the Archimedes through summoning.

As the minute counted down, I quickly considered my strategy. I had to give up the Blood Tamara because I shouldn't go up that quick, and that was the only one which probably wouldn't affect the plot much.

Khun could probably get the White Heavenly Mirror on his own, but Bong Bong was a problem. How did Androssi find it originally?

I contacted her via Pocket.

"I just got away from the team. What's up?"

"I think you should aim for Bong Bong. I have a feeling it might be quite useful," I said.

"Any idea how to find it?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"I'll keep an eye out then. I'm going to help the team get some bullets, and then I'll go play with Viole. It seems like he's not with his team right now," said Androssi.

"Well, alright then. Do as you like, just don't let him know that you know," I said.

She had Axie out on her shoulder so I was able to switch to that view as necessary as well. There seemed to be a few Regulars that I didn't know following her around.

Just then, the timer ended, and the competition started. The number of tickets totaled 248, and it immediately started going down, presumably from people betraying and shooting their own teammates.

There was a loud scream that sounded like Wangnan coming from their room, I checked in and saw Khun smirking and Wangnan holding his heart. Nothing to worry about then.

I concentrated back on my Avatar Body. With the Lighthouse I'd easily located several Regulars that were around, and then exited my control center Cube before setting off.

The first Regular I rushed towards didn't even see me coming. I fell onto him and knocked the gun out of his hand before his teammate could react, while Derf's own avatar sword had separated from me and attacked the other guy on his own.

Both went down and I grabbed their bullets before stuffing one of them into a Cube so that I could shoot him for my ticket later.

Someone shot at me from a nearby window, but my Cubes formed a barrier to block it.

I threw a Needle back and impaled my assailant before she could retreat, before bursting through the open window to retrieve my Needle and hold my hand against her neck.

"What a waste of a bullet," I said to the young woman with long dark brown hair. "You shouldn't have shot without being certain that it would hit."

The woman struggled but was unable to get out of my grip.

"But you're lucky, I don't mind sparing your life if you help me with something," I said.

"W-what?" She stopped struggling.

"Your hair. I need it."

"…"

After I cut off her hair, I knocked her out, and then found another spot to hide while I changed my own appearance.

Hair was one of those things that could not just be grown that easily using Shaping, nor could my Armoriont do it very quickly. So I used the woman's hair to attach to my own while adjusting my body to be more slender and changing my face to match that of Viole's as well.

It was a shoddy job that probably wouldn't get past anybody that knew him. Trying to accurately mimic somebody else would require a lot of time, precision work, and access to the model for a prolonged period, but this was good enough for my purposes.

Once I was done with that, I headed for the FUG hotel, where Ship's team was setting up an assault.

Androssi's signal had disappeared from my Lighthouse, and apparently put Axie away as well, so I couldn't tell what was happening with her. I guessed that she had found Viole and was now in a signal-jammed area.

Khun's group was fine for now, and he'd sent Dan up already.

Yihwa's group was still camped inside the observatory with Goseng monitoring the area below with her Lighthouse.

The remaining ticket numbers continued to count down while the FUG team tensely watched Anak, who was standing on top of a light tower facing them, from their floor in the hotel.

It appeared that they were both waiting for the other to make a move first. The FUG team hadn't gotten any bullets at all yet, so Ship's team was probably pressuring them by laying siege without assaulting. Their own side had gotten several bullets from Androssi already, so they held the advantage. As time went down, the FUG team would be forced to sally out if they wanted to stay in the competition.

I slunk closer to the building, hid between some large garbage dumps, and then began to wait as well.

The minutes passed, and finally, Ship's team moved as soon as the number of tickets remaining hit 100. A loud crash through windows announced Anak's assault on Team FUG's room.

From what little I remembered about this fight, there should not be any significant casualties, and Viole got back halfway through just in time to save a member of his team that was in trouble, who was actually Hwa Ryun undercover unbeknownst to him.

I hadn't protested Androssi going to mess with Viole because I was pretty sure she'd hunted him down in the story as well, and somehow found Bong Bong in the process, but if Viole didn't get back in time, things could get really messy if Hwa Ryun got injured badly.

It would be better not to wait for something to go wrong, and preemptively bring the situation under my control.

I spotted Hatsu approaching Cassano on the ground to the west of the hotel.

The inside of the building was too dark to see clearly with my bird familiar from the outside and I hadn't identified Hwa Ryun yet. The FUG group seemed to have split up, with Ran and Novick being the ones sent to face Anak.

I couldn't tell where the rest of them were or if they had anybody unexpected.

And because Ship had also managed to sneak around stealthily, I wasn't sure where their other angles of attack were. Anak was the obvious frontal attack that was meant to be seen. Hatsu was the flanking maneuver. The real attack was hidden.

I knew they got inside the building somehow, but not the route. But there were no connections around the hotel, so it must have been from underground.

I watched Hatsu fight and converse with Cassano for a bit before the former started to get the upper hand. It seemed that Hatsu was unable to even hurt Cassano the last time they fought, but Hatsu had improved to the point where he became capable of cutting Cassano's flesh, and now the Living Ignition Weapon was in shock.

He was soon overpowered and left kneeling on the ground.

Strange. I thought Cassano won this battle, but he seemed to be at Hatsu's mercy.

"Answer me Cassano. Why are you with FUG? Your body is already the strongest weapon in and of itself. What else could you want from the Workshop Battle?" asked Hatsu while holding his sword to Cassano's head.

"A sword that gets stronger with the owner…I envy it…" said Cassano.

"What?"

Cassano remained silent against Hatsu's question.

I decided to act.

"…!" Hatsu's eyes darted towards me, and he lifted his sword to guard against my sudden charge.

Cassano took the opportunity to jump away.

My palm met the flat of Hatsu's sword as we parried each other, but I left a small wave of Shinsoo on contact, pushing his sword off balance, allowing me to move into his guard for close quarters.

Despite this, Hatus managed to barely dodge my next strike with some good footwork.

He did not, however, manage to dodge the Baang I created to zap a bolt of Shinsoo into his chest, sending him hurtling towards Cassano. That was a pretty convenient aspect of Viole's Shinsoo-based fighting style which I'd copied.

The cautiously observing Living Ignition Weapon did not miss a beat, using the opportunity to power up an attack with a red whirlwind of Shinsoo erupting from his left Devil backlight, and punched towards Hatsu.

"Damn!" Hatsu twisted around midair and got his sword in the way to block, but this time Cassano's attack crushed through his sword, much to the swordsman's shock.

Unable to react without his weapon, the light mode bullet that Cassano fired with the gun in his right hand hit Hatsu and sent him to the Archimedes in a dazzle of white light.

"…why did you send him up, Cassano?" I asked him, who had a guarded expression facing me still.

"You're not Viole," said Cassano, instead of answering me. "Who are you? Why did you help me?"

"You can call me A. I'm helping Rachel," I said simply.

At that, the other Regular relaxed slightly. "I see. I wasn't informed I would have any backup on this mission."

I'd chosen to meet Cassano first because I knew from the original story that he was Rachel's agent and had a different purpose compared to the faction opposing us in the FUG Wager.

"I'm not actually your backup. I have my own objectives, but it would be inconvenient for me if you and your team didn't make it to the Archimedes for the next phase," I said, and walked towards the side door of the building, leaving my back to him as if he were no threat to me. "Since Viole is MIA, I'll fill in for him until he gets back. Your opponents tonight are a bit dangerous."

He fell into step beside me, but still cautiously kept the barest bit behind to keep me fully in sight. "Do you intend to meet the other FUG members like that? I don't think your disguise will fool the rest of the team either. He wasn't wearing the robes today, and your hair is a bit off. Not to mention, Xia Xia should be connected to his Pocket."

Xia Xia was acting as their Lightbearer to coordinate the team. She should also be the one that orchestrated the Arlene's Hand incident on behalf of Rachel. I couldn't recall her helping Rachel any more after that, but neither was she on the anti-Viole coalition's side. Considering that Cassano said he wasn't aware of having any backup, I had to assume that Xia Xia wasn't in on this part of Rachel's plan, and was merely a normal, unaffiliated, FUG member who did not know the true objectives of any internal faction.

"It's not meant to fool them, just the ones attacking you. But you can pretend to be fooled by me in front of your team. If they question you, you can just say you were only playing along to find out what my goal is," I said.

"Very well."

We entered the building, then Cassano used his Pocket to contact Xia Xia.

"I dealt with the intruder at the west exit, returning now," he said.

"Good, Viole's back too! He's heading to the main stairs to back up Yuto, but he told us he didn't need our help, and to search around the hotel instead. There's at least two enemies there."

"I see. Understood," said Cassano.

"Grrr! That's it? You're fine with that?"

"Do you think he will fail with his strength?"

"I guess not…"

"Then he is right. We need to clear out the area and get to collecting light bullets," said Cassano. "Time is running out."

"Fine."

The connection closed and Cassano turned his Pocket invisible again.

"It seems that the situation is under control now," said Cassano, turning to me.

I nodded. "I am no longer needed then. Perhaps we shall meet again on the Archimedes. Farewell, Cassano."

"Farewell…A."

O O O

Viole saved Yuto–Hwa Ryun undercover–and successfully fended off Ship's team before negotiating a hostage exchange truce to end the fight.

I stayed away from it but monitored it through the broken windows and walls, before making my way back to my main body.

At the end of the game, Androssi captured the Traveler, which was an intruder baited by Emily to break into the Workshop Battle, and received Bong Bong as a reward for that. The combat teleportation item would be quite useful to her on future Floors.

And then, I used a dark mode bullet to shoot one of the captured Regulars from earlier, allowing me to ascend to the Archimedes as well.

O O O

35F Train City Central Station

Darul transmitted the intel collected on the next potential easier isolated or small group targets to my Lighthouse. It turned out that he was a decent Lightbearer himself, not a surprise considering that teams were often led by Lightbearers.

The rest of his team consisted of two Fishermen, two Speabearers, and one Scout. No Wave Controllers, as those were even rarer than Lightbearers.

Since they were of no importance, I just referred to them by their Position and a number.

"Hmm, what do you think, Darul? We need at least two more tickets to get all of your team onboard, three if including the maid," I said, while sitting on the sofa petting my tiger cat Beastiont. "Will you have any trouble with the targets?"

"The targets themselves don't seem too bad, but I think the competition is about to heat up. There's less than a few days left before the Hell Train departs. Other teams will have their eye on these targets too. At this stage, the real question isn't whether we can get more, but whether we can keep them until we get on the Train. The boarding platform in particular will be trouble. Everyone that goes there will either be a ticketer or aiming to attack the ticketers at the last moment. The biggest issue is Aka Williams, who presses all the newcomers to join as his subordinates. Word has probably gone around about our group by now, so they're likely to be targeting us," said Darul.

Maid brought in some tea quietly and then stood for further instructions at my leisure.

"Aka Williams…" I murmured, trying to remember if the name had any significance. When I saw the image of his huge body that was several times taller and wider than any normal person, it felt like a side character from the story, but I couldn't figure out any more than that.

Probably not important enough to matter much, but best kept alive to play his role.

"Well, if everyone is going to gather at the boarding platform, it would be easier to just take the tickets we need then and there, right?" I asked.

"That's…"

"Haha, just kidding. Although that would be simpler, you should go ahead and get the tickets from the remaining targets first. But, don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out or a strong enemy appears. Just retreat and we'll deal with it later at the boarding platform. Also, take these guys with you for your next missions, they'll listen to you."

I gestured to materialize an Arms Inventory where I kept my Bowl capsules, and opened one that released a trio of huge Beastionts each the size of a van. A wolf, a bear, and a beetle.

They Compressed down to normal animal sizes at my command, except for the beetle which matched them.

"Obey him," I said, pointing to Darul.

They barked, grunted, or made clicking sounds to affirm their understanding.

I turned back to Darul. "Each of them should be more than a match for an average Regular in combat, but you can also let your men ride on them. Just point and gesture for basic commands. Swing a fist for non-lethal attack, chop for lethal, make a circle with your thumb for guarding, make a grab for fetch. Turn your palm like this if you want them to let you ride. They can understand some verbal commands too, but you'll need to set your Pocket to translate to Anglaic specifically. That's the only way you can tell them to 'stop' or stand down. They won't respond to Macsethian."

"Thank you, lady Sasha, we will not disappoint you," said Darul, looking surprised and pleased.

…

Two days later, Darul reported back that two of the targets had been hit before they could get there, defeated another hunting team while chasing the third, and encountered a subordinate team sent by Aka Williams when searching for the last one.

The battles ended up being pretty lopsided with the Beastionts on their side, and so we'd gotten two more tickets for a total of 7.

Now we were among the larger ticket holder groups in Train City and there was a big target on our backs.

Still, I didn't believe I had anything to fear, the gulf between the elite and the average was simply too large, and I was absolutely elite. Comparatively the gap between Rank-separating Floors wasn't that big. This meant that most of the top E-Ranks could wreck a lot of weaker D-Ranks.

While most D-Rank Regulars had become easily superhuman and many were multiple times stronger, the fact was that my Beastionts completely outclassed the Armoriont by sheer mass and size, on top of the fact that I could maximally Reinforce them due to their reliance on pure brute biology with no substantial Mystery or Shinsoo.

They were powerful enough to be a dangerous threat to me at full Reinforcement (both magecraft and Shinsoo) without Derf, Burstshift, or Endbringer crystal armor.

Or, put it another way, one fully Reinforced Beastiont could easily take down my Canjon corpse puppet that entered the 20th Floor test even with Broken Reinforcement, at least in a pure melee contest.

Their lack of Shinsoo resistance had been a severe hindrance, one that was only solved before on Axie due to the very small mass of water spirits I added to it. But ever since the training with Ha Jinsung, from which I had comprehended the nature of flow and resistance, this had changed.

Similar to the technology objects I'd Reinforced to gain resistance, I'd been able to make the Beastionts adapt to the Shinsoo environment after controlled exposure training.

It might become more difficult with higher Floors' densities, especially with newly grown Beastionts, but these guys had all been with me for more than a year now.

It was simply too convenient in the Tower to carry around 'Shinheuh' in Bowls, so of course I had to take advantage of it with a low maintenance creature like the Beastiont.

"Looks like we don't have a ticket for Maid, huh?" I remarked after Darul's report, much to Maid's dismay. "Should I bother to get her one at the boarding platform?"

"Her contribution to the last mission was not bad. Since our team has too much frontline muscle, having an extra Scout would be useful," said Darul. "Of course, if you have a scouting type Shinheuh too, that may not be as meaningful."

"No, you're right. I have scouting-type Shinheuh, but they can't be as intelligent or independent as a person, after all. If you think Maid's cowardice isn't a liability for the team, then I'll trust your judgment, since you'll be commanding her."

"I understand. I will accept responsibility and ensure that she learns to fight properly," said Darul.

"Hear that, Maid? I'll get you a ticket, since Darul wants to be nice. Unless you'd rather not go on the Hell Train with us? It could get pretty dangerous," I said. "You might die."

"I will go! If you'll have me. Thank you Miss Sasha!" She bowed and put her palms together.

"Now, tell the whole team to assemble. Since you guys have done well, I'll give you all a little reward so that you'll be prepared for whatever happens at the boarding platform tomorrow."

"Yes, lady Sasha, I'll get them right away. I am sure they will be very pleased."

I spent the rest of the day analyzing my new minions and engraving spell crests for them that would draw from their lifeforce to generate mana and allow them to activate customized Reinforcement spells on their own.

This type of thing would be pretty dangerous and eventually fatal for normal people, but since Shinsoo was so miraculous and everyone received lifeforce just from breathing it, they would probably be fine.

Reinforcement was a cheap enough spell that they could activate it fairly often without getting debilitated as long as they made sure to rest properly between uses. Which, I clearly emphasized to them, since I was not the kind of master that would get useful subordinates intentionally power drunk and burn themselves out.

O O O