Hello everyone.

"Talking"

Thoughts

'Mental Communication or using a magic item'

[Debuffs]

Skills/Systems

Chapter 22 – Preparing for War

June 2, 2044

Pilot, Crescent Rose

"So let me see if I got this straight?" JAnz began.

"You took a quest from some random tian you have never met before."

"Well…yes, but-"

"And she just gave you nearly six million lir, six MILLION, to explore some ruins that she just so happened to have a map of…while attending the Founding Festival?"

"It was actually six-ty million."

"WHAT!" Everyone else in the room screamed in surprise.

"Well-"

"And you just decided, 'Sure why not?', right?" JAnz asked an exacerbated look covering her entire face.

"Did I miss anything?"

"She said what she gave me was the down payment and I'd get triple that upon retrieving something from the ruins." Crescent nervously chirped. Her silver eyes failed to meet JAnz's intense brown eyes.

Said newly minted Burst Gunner looking on at her with incredulity as her lower jaw hung somewhere around her knees.

In the background, Kelly was drinking a Dr. Piper – still weird to see brand-name sodas in a video game like this – while Wotan was cuddling their newest friend, P-M374 (Meta) in her arms.

It was somewhat bizarre seeing Meta being lulled to sleep in Wotan's arms. Especially given the fact she was in her clay-blob form with only her head resembling a normal person's.

And why did seeing her like that make Crescent angry?

"Crescent focus!" The tanned girl in the lavender outfit said pulling her attention back to her.

"What do you want from me, I already accepted the quest!"

JAnz sighed and then looked even angrier, "A level NINE quest I might remind you. For comparison, exploring those ruins was only ranked as a level five quest according to the guild."

"Aren't Guild Quest difficulty rankings a lot less accurate than Event Quests or Job Qualification Quests?" Kelly chimed in only to quickly hide behind Wotan when JAnz glared at her.

Once their party's support member was fully cowed, their team's DPS turned her gaze back on Crescent who let out a nervous "Eep!"

"You can't just go around accepting quests like that. In a game like ID, a single mistake on a quest could have dramatic effects."

"Not everyone can be the Knight on the flaming horse that helped Altar's Royal Guard defeat a UBM or Huang He's Dragon General getting awarded three Treasure Beast Orbs for saving one of the princes."

"But just as easily, it could end badly, like those idiots on the coast who accepted an Event Quest and got an entire cargo ship, with tians included, sunk to the bottom of the ocean by Empress Cryoconite."

That had Crescent's spine shivering. She remembered her own encounter with the galaxy-haired cat faunus and how she had easily dispatched her, totaled her Magingear, and done so without even trying.

Ever since that encounter, she had been keeping track of any DIN articles that featured her. Somehow, she had managed to sneak into Altar from Dryfe and was now wreaking havoc in Granvaloa's West Fleet.

Somehow, she's always able to keep ahead of the Fleet Nation's two, now three Superiors, and even managed to PK the King of Pirates.

"But I can't not do anything now that I've accepted." The blonde-tipped redhead pleaded. "Besides, you were complaining over breakfast how you didn't have enough lir for your new bullet ideas."

"She's got you on both points dudette," Kelly said peeking out from behind Crescent's Embryo.

Letting out a tired sigh, JAnz nodded. "What exactly is the quest?"

"There were some ruins discovered and she wants us to explore them."

"Okay, we might be able to do something about that."

"Except…" Crescent said before going quiet.

"Except?"

"The ruins are located near the no man's land between Dryfe and Caldina and might, technically, be ever so slightly…on the Caldina side of things."

JAnz looked like she was about to scream before she took in a deep breath and returned to a more neutral mask, "If I get the death penalty, you're compensating me for lost lir and items."

"S-sure." She said as JAnz dropped her.

"We're also going to need more muscle. If this is anything like last time, we need to be able to be able to handle just about anything and everything."

"Wotan." She said turning towards the wolf/raven maiden. "Can you get Chrono to help us?"

She shook her head, "Nope, Chrono said he had to do something for his family yesterday and probably wouldn't be back for a while."

"Of course." She sighed, "The one time we could use the pk-happy pint-size, he's not here."

"Meta, would you like to join our party?" Crescent asked and the somewhat melted girl jumped to life, splattered onto the floor, and then reformed herself.

"That would be sensational." She beamed.

"We'll that's one." The bluenette said. "Let's shoot for a full party of six."

"Do Embryos count?" Wotan asked as JAnz helped herself to the Maiden Embryo's now empty arms. They were taking her into a deep hug as she savored the unparalleled softness.

"Embryos don't count towards the total count for a party. So, we need at least two more. I have some favors I can cash in."

"Oh, then we can ask Doppel's Master," Wotan said, dashing away leaving JAnz in clear fluffy withdrawal already.

"L-lets meet back here in two hours," Crescent said chasing after her Embryo.

"Whose Doppel?" Kelly asked Meta who merely just shrugged before seeing JAnz looking down without Wotan and deciding to hug her.

She missed how disappointed the bluenette looked given that despite her appearance she still felt like a mass of soft clay in the shape of a young girl.

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Beast Ogre, Pinetree

Oscar Pines or as many in Infinite Dendrogram know him, Pinetree, was having a rather nice week. The chores had been unusually light, his aunt had been practicing making her special cookies for the county fair and he got to try the failures, which were still delicious, and he had just completed the Job Qualification Quest to get his first high-rank job.

Oh, and his Embryo had finally made it to its third form.

Needless to say, things were going his way.

If someone had told him that Infinite Dendrogram was even half as fun as it was for him so far, he would have started playing months ago.

He was currently eating in The Clock Tower cafeteria. The small pale teal alien-like entity with black voids for its eyes and mouth that was his Embryo was happily eating raw Brussel sprouts and drinking unsweetened black coffee – for some reason, his Embryo loved bitter things- while Pinetree was eating a burger and fries.

But the brother gods he would have played ID just for The Clock Tower's chef's cooking.

He heard ID food tasted better than anything in all of Remnant and after eating it for so long he was inclined to believe it.

He was currently flipping through a book of Quests that the Clock Tower was issuing for their members, trying to decide what he wanted to do.

He could go to one of the many guilds, a Jaguarman Guild was forming soon, or just the Adventurer's Guild, but since it was the Clock Tower these were quests for clan members only.

While most would think his build wouldn't exactly fit in with a crafting clan, most would need to remember it was a clan that made giant robots. And in a world where an average person could become strong enough to shatter steel with their bare hands or outrun a speeding bullet, it helped to be able to test said robots against someone who could do something similar.

Suddenly, he heard someone running towards the cafeteria. It was still surreal for him to be able to sense and perceive things at a near-superhuman level.

However, what rushed into the cafeteria was something he wasn't exactly expecting. It was a cute girl with an eyepatch… in a wolf costume(?)

Granted, he didn't exactly have a lot of room to judge. At least she showed her face while he was currently wearing his best gear…which was a brown and white rooster costume.

Why did the only UBM I ever encounter have to be a giant roster?

Refusing to let his lamentation catch up to him…also the wolf girl just walked up, sat down at their table without saying a word, scooped up Doppelganger, and started feeding him like he was a baby.

It wasn't as if he hadn't heard of her before. She was supposedly a famous Embryo who stole other people's Embryos.

Though whenever he asked Doppel about her he would only shake his head and make some weird gestures he couldn't understand.

Maybe he needed to kill a talking monster. That way, Doppel could speak.

About two minutes later, a young woman with short red hair with blonde tips in a red pilot's uniform came up to them, panting like she was out of breath.

"Did…you…ask…him?" she asked the wolf maiden in between gasps for air.

After catching her breath, she then asked, "And why did you go the long way? We circled the entire clan hall THREE times."

"You needed the exercise." She replied feeding Doppel a Brussels sprout and smiling warmly at him as he ate from her hand.

"Master take a picture," she said quietly.

Admittedly, the scene was rather adorable.

"Wotan I'm not- Woah, giant chicken?!" she exclaimed. She had just only now realized he was there.

However, it wasn't all bad. When their gazes met, he found she had rather attractive silver eyes.

"I-I'm Doppelganger and this is my Embryo, Pinetree." He stuttered and then realized his mistake, "I mean reverse that."

He was now grateful for his Super Suit Series. How could he say something that stupid?

Taking his hand, she shook, "Nice to meet you, I'm Crescent Rose and this is my Embryo, Wotan."

"And this is Doppel," Wotan added tickling Doppel's belly making the little alien wiggle in delight.

"This might sound weird, but do you want to form a party?" Crescent asked.

Without hesitation, there was only one answer he could give.

/-/

Burst Gunner, JAnz

"Absolutely No" shouted a young man with black hair and pink eyes wearing a vest with the image of a cyclops on the back. "The last time I got involved with that circus you call a clan, I got an inventory with six boss monster rewards stolen and pk'd for two more rewards." He said before walking away.

JAnz sighed internally. Regal was considered one of the three best PKers in Dryfe. With Chrono and herself being the first and second-place spots. The only difference between herself and the others was that she used her Trickbullets to PK people without them knowing it was her.

Bun-Bun didn't count due to her only PK'ing people who deserved it.

She had wanted to get him to join. Despite being third on her list, he was one of the few people she could count on who had a combat-related Superior Job.

King of Lightning, the Superior Job version of the Boltmancer from the Mage Grouping.

Thanks to his Embryo, he didn't have a lot of the weaknesses Mages typically did, which made him one of the few people who could fend off Chrono.

"Look, the down payment was sixty million and the reward upon completion is triple." She said causing the man to stop in his tracks.

"How much of that is my share?"

"One-sixth. The standard party split, you collect all rewards from monsters you kill."

"I see. Wish my clanmates were here."

"What the hell Regal? You won't be getting any more than that, we were only planning to use a single party."

"Wait, wait." He waved his hands in front of her, "You got it wrong. Most of my guys are on their way to Huang He."

"Tell you what, I'll take you there and explore the ruins before heading towards Huang He."

She blinked. Yeah, that tracked.

News of what was happening on the other side of the continent had everyone up in arms.

Tenchi, or more specifically the White Fang, had declared war on Huang He. It was set to take place in a few days and everyone who wasn't blasting the message boards about bashing faunus was excited to see Dendrogram's war functions.

According to the DIN, wars between countries could only be waged between the countries' tians and those who either ranked in the top thirty of their country's Duel or Kill Rankings or were in one of the top thirty clans.

After the White Fang pulled so much shit taking over the only major save point in Tenchi where all Tenchi Masters started, hundreds were flocking to Huang He to join one of their top clans.

Huang He's top three clans; Fateful Autumn, Immortals, and Dragon's Club all exploded with incoming Masters.

Some early estimations had Tenchi outnumbered nearly six to one. As the White Fang didn't have all of Tenchi's clans under its banner, that meant the number of available forces was at even worse odds.

Granted, that was when discussing typical foot soldiers. When it came to Superiors, it would be a game changer.

She wasn't as delusional as some tian NPCs. She herself had been on the wrong side of Doc Cricket when she had tried to PK him just after he became a Superior…it did not end well.

She wasn't that well informed about how many Superiors Tenchi had. Last she had heard, there were only the Murder Princess and Lord Ira.

There was a third, The Cage, but he was notorious for opposing the White Fang. So he probably joined one of Huang He's clans.

She seriously doubted they only had two Superiors up their sleeves. Otherwise, it would be suicide to go up against Huang He's Beast General, Over Geomancer, and Grind Princess.

And those were the ones she knew about, with Huang He matching Legendaria in terms of the Master population she wouldn't be surprised if they had enough Superiors to rival Legendaria's five Demon Lords.

She then saw that Regal was waiting for her response. Feeling embarrassed for getting lost in her thoughts, she replied without thinking, "You're just hoping you get a reward from the ruins that helps you finally pull a win over on Steeler and keep it more than a few days, right?"

The black-haired man chuckled, "Got me there. With any luck, I'll show him once and for all and keep the lead this time."

Regal and Steeler were not only rankers in the Duel Rankings but also Clan Rankings. Every time one would pull ahead, the other would take the higher rank within a few days. The two were known as the Permanent Fifth and Sixth because those were the places they kept swapping in between.

/-/

The party of six had gathered in one of the many conference rooms Doc Cricket had insisted be built into the clan house.

At first, JAnz didn't understand the idea, but she was coming around to how valuable the idea was.

Why all of the markers were fruit-scented she had no idea.

More than once, they had to stop Meta from eating the markers.

Apparently, the job Eaters Princess allowed her to literally eat anything. She also gained EXP from eating inanimate objects.

Given her Embryo's abilities, it wasn't that much of a surprise when she revealed she was over level 700 without even having all of her low and high-rank job slots filled.

After discussing things for a little bit they came up with the following party breakdown.

Pinetree and Crescent, in her Magingear, acted as the main tanks with Crescent having the secondary role of high damage single strike DPS thanks to Wotan's skill.

JAnz and Regal would act as DPS. Her bullets counted as physical damage while his lightning spells counted as magical damage, so they should be covered to handle most situations.

Kelly played support. Her new high-rank job of High Enchanter allowed her to give buffs to the party.

While Meta was assigned a switch role between tank and physical attacker. Her Embryo's skill allowed her to chip away at and eventually consume a target's END. Her role would be to weaken and, if possible, finish off any major threats so Crescent didn't have to use Wotan's Runic Script.

As far as Embryos went, JAnz, and Meta all had fifth form Embryos while Kelly, Crescent, and Pinetree all had third form Embryos. Regal had the most evolved Embryo of the group with his Haietlik being in its sixth form.

As they exited the clan building, Kelly spoke up. "Uh, dudes and dudettes, how are we going to get there exactly? Punga's third form can only hold up to five people."

Regal smirked, "Leave that to me." He said as he reached into an inventory and pulled out a bronze-colored barge in the shape of a dragon.

"All aboard." He joked as he jumped into the ship.

"What is this?" Crescent went starry-eyed at his special reward.

"It's a reward I got when my clan fought the Legendary UBM, Jetdragon, Valcan." He grinned.

This time both Crescent and Pinetree looked on at him in excitement. "You took on a Legendary Ranked UBM?!"

He just rubbed his nails on his chest like he was cleaning them, "It wasn't all that big of a deal."

JAnz rolled her eyes, she was stopping this now.

"Let's get moving already, with a difficulty rating this high, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a UBM or possibly other Masters."

Regal waved her off, "With what's going on in Huang He, who would choose to explore some dusty old ruins instead?"

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Caldina Desert, Direct Route to the Ruins

"Remind me again why we are choosing to explore some dusty old ruins as opposed to going to Huang He and handing the White Fang their collective asses?" asked a short woman in a sandy cloak.

She and her party were riding through the desert at high speeds on what appeared to be a mechanical whale with a paddle wheel where its tail should be.

Said whale's pilot, was a dark-skinned woman dressed in a skimpy sailor's outfit.

"For the hundredth time, because the chairwoman offered us more than Huang He is." Replied a man in a blue long coat with a high collar with a pair of attached sunglasses. "She's paying us nearly a billion lir PLUS several expensive rare items."

"Yeah…" the woman in the cloak began, "But why did she pair us – THIS group - up specifically?"

In addition to the three who had been talking, there was a tall man with a short caterpillar-like mustache dressed as a butler, an edgelord all in black with a silver diadem, and a woman in a color-shifting cloak that resembled flowing water with a similar diadem around her waist.

"Don't worry too much about it, I've worked with Ms. Phantasma before and she has an unprecedented level of foresight." He said pouring her a cup of cool tea which she took.

It was arguably the best tea she had ever had.

"Truth be told I think she's a witch or just creepy." The Butler added, his voice and tone changing.

pril had regularly worked for the chairwoman. She was arguably the best-paying tian in Caldina. And that said something.

She had worked with Tusk, the man in blue before, and even D'Apery, the woman whose Embryo they were on, but the sand-cloaked girl would be lying if she said she wasn't surprised by the list of people who had been assembled.

Truth be told, all six of them were Pre-Superiors with all, but two of them possessing a Superior Job.

Clay Princess, King of Resistance, Chariot Princess, and King of Gems.

She had heard of the Crowned siblings; JAX and GIL T. Nothing good, but anything would be better than working with Minos.

Yet she wasn't expecting Seventh Star. Despite Qliphoth having all of Caldina's Superiors, only the King of Libraries and the former Venom Princess were wide-scale annihilation types. With the latter gone, the Seventh Star moved up to the top of the Kill Rankings.

Despite his Embryo only being a sixth form, he had the most raw firepower of all of Caldina!

Just what exactly was the chairwoman expecting them to fight?

Her first thought would be a UBM, but that didn't seem right. She couldn't envision a UBM that would need such a diverse range of abilities to defeat.

Then her mind went to the possibility of other Masters.

That seemed to make more sense.

She could see her group doing rather well against any of Dryfe's three Superiors.

GIL T was a hard counter for the King of Engineering, her brother could handle the Lord Luxuria, and as for the Metal Princess…well between Tusk and Seventh Star, it probably wouldn't have been that hard of a fight.

They might be only Pre-Superiors but with Embryos as specialized as theirs, even a Superior would be at a disadvantage with such bad compatibility.

Then why was she so uneasy? While Dryfe did have some pretty dangerous Pre-Superiors of their own, such as the Blaster Princess or Ace, even they shouldn't be too much to deal with.

Then again, there were always rumors the Dryfeian royal family had a secret Superior working for them.

Was it them?

She wasn't sure, she just hoped that when they got to their destination it wouldn't be as bad as she feared it would be.

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Outside the Ruins, Caldina Border

A lone woman in a maid outfit observed her surroundings. She had an "X" shaped scar on her forehead that somehow matched the iris of her left blue eye. Her right eye was red and seemed to belong to a creature other than a human.

Her left arm had morphed into a massive flesh construct comprised of numerous tentacle-like arms ending in clawed hands which she used to clean up the wreckage of several dozen humanoid robots littering the ground by placing them in one of her inventories.

Her darling didn't like waste and there was such a great hall she might even get a date from him for it.

If she could blush, she would be. Her bluish-green hair swayed from side to side as she giggled at the thought of her and her darling having another date.

He was such a gentleman and so very intelligent.

Still, she looked at the wreckage at her feet. She hadn't seen them before, but she was at least familiar with them.

They were designed to latch onto monsters and use that monster's Resources for fuel.

Hence why there weren't any drop items.

Thanks to the flesh construct her darling had given her, she was able to clean up the mess in short order.

She pondered how to proceed through the entrance when two of her sensors altered her to oncoming targets.

She closed her right eye and her vision switched to two sights. The first was a bronze draconic-looking boat flying through the air from Dryfe while the other was from the Caldina side and looked like a mechanical paddle boat designed to resemble a whale.

What was that thing her darling always liked to say again?

Oh, that's right. "Never let an opportunity slip you by."

Or was it "You crazed bucket of bolts, whatever you do, don't waste valuable resources like using expensive potions to make tea or adding a self-destruct function to a jet pack!"

Either way, she knew what she needed to do.

If the High End and the Witch sent these Masters, then the odds were that they were strong.

Just as she was putting the finishing touches on her plan, two other signals, from the same directions tripped her sensors.

The first was a dark-skinned woman with a snake wrapped around her arm coming from Dryfe while the other was coming from Caldina…it was a polar bear(?)

She hadn't expected something like that. She used Reveal on it, but nothing happened. Identification told her that the polar bear was a costume. Ultimate Suit Series: Polar Star to be precise.

Was there a Master with a four-legged form?

She knew Masters came in all shapes and sizes, but she hadn't heard of one walking on all fours before.

What was even stranger was the fact it was moving at a supersonic speed, able to break the sound barrier.

"I should probably get to work." She said waving off the incoming danger and…unusualness, even for this world.

Her left arm broke off into dozens of small flesh constructs which proceeded to run into the ruins as her own body started to shimmer before becoming intangible.

Her darling was truly a genius.

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Deep within the Ruins

It had been patient.

Too patient.

While some of its siblings might have been created in the name of hope, it had been created in the name of fear and anger.

While some of its siblings were made by Mechanics and Engineers, it was made by Mages working like its creator, he too a Mage, but his works were unlike any artificer despite not having the job build for such a genius.

Countless Mages engraved their skills into it, sacrificing themselves in the process.

With their sacrifice came their fear and hatred. A hatred that rivaled its creator.

A hatred that was beginning to boil over.

It was almost complete.

I'm excited for this chapter and the next few to come. When I wrote the rough draft of Remnant Dendrogram I had planned for Oscar to be the main character, have him go through the chapter one character creation, and then get trapped by team CRDL only to be saved by Crescent (Ruby) Rose and her fifth form Embryo Wotan who would then introduce Oscar to her friends…the very same characters that formed a party this chapter.

I'm also excited because a lot of stuff is going to happen from here on out and it. Is. Gonna. Be. AWESOME!

Also, just curious, but can anyone guess what Klein's Embryo is? *Hint-Hint* it's in his name and it somewhat relates to short little miners.

Crescent Rose = Ruby Rose

Kelly Hawks = Reese Chloris

JAnz = Nebula Violette

P-M374 (Meta) = Penny Polendina

Regal = Nolan Porfirio (His name means "noble" and "Purple Clad". Purple was for a long time a color only worn by the rich so a purple-wearing noble = Regal)

Bun-Bun = Velvet Scarlatina

Steeler = Kobalt

pril = May Zedong

Tusk = Ivori (If you haven't guessed, I swapped Kobalt and Ivori's color palettes)

D'Apery = Olive Harper

JAX Crowned = Jax Asturias

GIL T Crowned = Gillian Asturias

Seventh Star = Klein Sieben

Minos = Adam Taurus

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