Day 1 of resting

We quickly arrived at the training room, where several guards were fighting dummies with all their might. I could see them do moves I could only dream to do; some of them almost seemed to be one with their blades, others seemed to never miss their shots no matter the distance between them and the dummy. Mages could fire a lot of spells in a row, spells much more impressive than any of mine. One of them, some weirdo dressed like a typical white mage and with blue hair, was actually chaining several explosions in a row on her dummy. And cackling like a mad witch.

I pulled out my gun, giving it a twirl or two, and then started aiming at a lone dummy, while Rom and Ram started going ham on their own dummies. It was easy to spot the difference between them and the other mages. Their spells, while less impressive, and definitely smaller, were actually doing more damage to their targets than anyone else on their own. It was a bit uncanny, and more than humbling for a lot of us.

I started shooting at my dummy, and... Missed. Frowning, I adjusted my aim and shot once again, and continued to shot until I felt a pull in my heart and was forced to stop. I kneeled over a little bit, and then inspected my dummy.

As expected, my performance was disastrous. More than half my magic bullets didn't even hit the dummy, and of those that did less than a quarter of them hit anything important. It was as I thought, nothing but luck allowed me to win against my opponents this far.

"You really should head the call of the unending powers that be."

I jumped, barely managing to not shout in fear at the person who was now behind me, looking all stoic and serious. It was the white mage girl, who had stopped tormenting her poor dummy in favour of scaring me to death.

I took a second to gulp, and then asked "what do you mean?"

"It is just as I said," she said as she took a pose, holding her hat in one hand and her staff in the other, "in order to be more efficient on the field of battle, one needs to always answer the call of the powers that took a hold on them!"

I looked at her, with a deadpan expression on my face. Behind me, Ram was looking with a poker-face, and Rom was trying to hide her giggles. I took a second to see if she had anything to add, and then asked "What?"

She looked disappointed, for a reason, but started to explain herself. "Magic bends to the user's will. To some, it manifests in them summoning all the giant swords in their collection in the sky, to skewer their foes once they took enough damage; to others, it opens the gates between dimensions and summons the primordial elements of the world to answer their biddings. You are not yet holding your magic in your will, but are merely shaping it in a vague idea of what you want."

I tried to look past all her (admittedly kinda funny) manners, and to decipher what she meant. "You're saying I should focus more on what to shot, and not just the idea of shooting?"

She claps once, smiling, and then grab her staff and assume another pose. "Precisely! You have been gifted an artefact of rare proportion, and have yet to unlock its full potential. It is now up to you to change the future, and unlock your Fate, by mastering your own magic and the world around you. Now, I bid you farewell, for my time here is coming to a close. May the Organisation fails in their endeavours against you, Gyone; Loohcs tneve emag noitamina cisum."

With these strange words, she then left the area, leaving a dumbfounded me and a giggling Rom. I turned back to my training dummy, but before I could try anything, I heard Ram clearing her throat behind me.

"Did you ever see that woman before?" she asked.

I blinked, and then answered "nah, first time ever actually. I forgot to ask her name by the way."

Ram frowned, but said nothing and returned to burning her dummy to ashes. Rom, having stopped giggling, then asked a deeply unsettling question.

"Then... Why did she know your name?"

I didn't answer. And deep inside, I'll admit, I didn't want an answer. So I spent the day shooting at the training dummy, and noticed that I could shot more and more between each breaks my heart forced on me.

Day 2 of forced vacation

I was at the training hall alone today, as Rom and Ram were off doing some quests to gain some shares for Lowee, and Mina forbid me from going because I was "still too weak from your last battles". After training my magic limit (is it okay to treat them as MP?) and my accuracy yesterday, I kinda wanted to try what the weird white mage told me to do. Shape my magic bullets.

I doubt I could make my gun shot rockets, but there were many more things I could try. I recalled the ice that appeared on Overflow's body, when I shot him back in the N labo, and wondered if I could do it again now that my life wasn't in danger anymore.

Aiming at the dummy, I shot several bullets in quick succession, and around half of them missed. Of course, of those that did hit the target, none seemed to spawn a thin veneer of ice like I wanted.

Perhaps that was the problem. That's what I wanted, not what I was forcing my magic to do. I closed my eyes and searched deep inside for something, took aim, and tried to think of the cold I felt inside at the time of our battle. And then I shot. As I opened my eyes, to my absolute surprise... The shot missed.

Moreover, the wall behind the dummy didn't appear to have ice anywhere.

I tried several times after that failure, each time growing more and more frustrated. A bit because I couldn't shot my ice bullets (and boy would they be useful next time I fought... Well, anything really) but a lot of my frustration was related to the fact that I couldn't hit jack shit.

Growling, I shot the dummy with everything I had, screaming in my head to stop fucking missing your shots, and when I stopped, forced to breathe in and out until my heart calmed itself, I looked at the dummy, expecting most of my bullets to have missed...

Which they apparently didn't.

I looked at the gun in my hands, and then at the dummy, before chuckling.

Welp, if ice bullets don't cut it, maybe target-seeking bullets will cut it!

Day 5 of torture by doing nothing of consequence

"So, you ain't a magic gun user?"

I shook my head, and then started explaining to the guard that was training his own accuracy at my side. "Nah, I'm more used to wielding a spear actually, but I lost it a week or so ago. It broke in a fight against some ASIC goons, and just after that it was swallowed in a fire. Nothing I could do, except use an eject button. Or die I guess, but I strangely wasn't okay on this idea."

He chuckled. Then we turned back into comfortable silence.

When I explained how I trained to Mina, she started getting angry. Apparently it's not good for you to push your heart to the brink of total failure several times in a row by using all your magic. She didn't understand why I didn't keel over dead already, but I think it's because my body knows how to work without magic. Of course, I didn't say that to her.

He finished his round of shooting, and then paused to let his weapon gather up energy once more. "You know, you should maybe try to see if you can get your spear back from wherever you left it. Losing your first weapon like that... It messes you up, ya know?"

I raise an eyebrow at that, but don't say anything. Instead, I let him start his next round of firing in peace, as I think about what he said.

Mina looks absolutely livid, and start to open her mouth to say something probably really demeaning at me, before she stops and sighs, putting her cup of tea down.

"I can't let the twins go with you, even if you did take control over the Burning Lab. And I can't let you go alone, because you still didn't recover from your recent ordeal. I only see one solution for you to go, and it's not going to please you..."

I blink, and then look at her, dumbfounded. "What do you mean, I took control over the Burning Lab?"

Mina looks at me, surprised. "Didn't your say in your story that you won in a boss battle in the Burning Lab? Because if so, this means that the Primal Shares of the dungeon uses samples of your magic to generate monsters who, in turns, generate shares passively and on death, according to which nation you consider to be your home. Since most of the dungeons have been taken over by ASIC, this is why ASIC's hold on shares is so massive."

I nodded, then started thinking. "So, if a dungeon is at a low enough danger level, you can challenge the current owner to steal it and generate shares for your nation?"

"No," she denies, "you can only recapture a dungeon that way if it appeared because of a share corruption. It's actually how most dungeons works, they were normal pieces of land or even human infrastructures which, for a reason or another, got corrupted by some weird magic and started decaying. Their first ownerships belongs to the one who corrupted them, or those they trusted, and defeating the holder on their controlled area allows you to take control of it and even stop generating monsters, so that workers may repair the damage."

I think about it for a second. "You said 'if' it appeared because of corruption. That means there's other types of dungeons?"

At that, she stops, likely thinking about whether or not I should be told about it. Luckily for me, she decided that I was trustworthy enough, and explained. "There are two other types of dungeons, the rifts and the divine dungeons. Rifts are permanent fixtures, that does not operate on shares or magic, and instead bring a piece of another world in our own. They cannot be taken over or exploited for more than monsters parts. Divine dungeons are also permanent dungeons, but tied to a Goddess. The Graveyard, for example, is a Divine Dungeon tied to the Deity of Sin, Arfoire; but the Severed Dungeon, in Planeptune, is a Rift."

I nod. "So, rifts are useless, normal dungeons are a glitch, and divine ones a feature, gotcha. So, that means that those boss events are a way to take control of the current dungeon by fighting its owner?"

"It's more than that", she says. "A boss event is actually a magical contract, in which a challenger promises to defeat an owner, and an owner promises to protect his dungeon to the best of his abilities. Forsaking one of your promises renders you unable to hold a dungeon, until the High Goddess deems you worthy again."

We stay there in comfortable silence, as I finally finish my tea. As I get up, I ask my last question.

"If the monsters are printed using my magic, does that mean I can force the monsters of the Burning Lab to not attack me?"

Mina pauses, and then chuckles. "That sounds like a wonderful idea. It would also explains why the ASIC seems to be able to fight alongside monsters."

Flashes of Linda, Warechu, and Ram commanding monsters to not bother them and them listening back crosses my mind, but I keep a neutral face. "Yeah. By the way, I'll agree to whatever solution you have for me to go to the Burning Lab. I might as well go there and stop monsters from spawning, so workers may repair it."

"Don't!" Mina pleads, and seeing my raised eyebrow, she explains. "With how low our shares are, the steady flow that comes from the Burning Lab is actually helping us tremendously. We should exploit it as much as possible, until ASIC is defeated, or at least rendered a non-issue."

"But didn't you say that new dungeons are the beginning of the end of the world or something like that?" I ask, to which she shakes her head.

"Uncontrolled dungeons are dangerous, yes. However, since you apparently have your hold on it, this means it will not spread, and is actually generating proper shares. It is less worrying than, say, the Atari Marsh, whose owner is unknown and probably inexistent, and which is expanding."

I nod to her. "Still, I had another more personal reason to go there. Would you allow it?"

"Is it anything that can't wait?" she asks, frowning.

"Not really?" she waits a bit, and when she sees that I don't answer, she lets out a sigh.

"Sure, meet me at 9 tomorrow, in the guest aisle."

Day 6 of supposed resting

I walk down the Guest Aisle, towards Mina, rom, and Ram, who are waiting in front of a room. As I catch up to them, I see the twins running in my direction, stopping in front of me, and saying that they're sorry for what's going to happen, before leaving again to do quests.

Uneasy, I approach Mina, whose smile could best be described as "feral".

"Good, you're here on time. Allow me to introduce you to your new teammates for today."

With this, she opens the door, catch my arm, and drag me inside. And any colour I still had is drained from my face.

"You want me to team-up with them? We hate each others' guts!" I yell. The Chinese Brat nods enthusiastically, and even Blue Coat is uneasy in my presence. That nurse just smiles, while Nepgear... I don't want to look at her actually.

"Now now, you said you wanted to go back to the Burning Lab, and the twins are away working for Lowee. This means that those four are your only way back there, and you will work together as friends," she says, with an edge appearing in her smile. Recognising she's entering "mom mode", I back away, and merely grumble.

Sadly, the Brat doesn't know how to recognise the signs. "Yeah, well I don't trust this elder! He's just gonna try and stab my wifeys in the back, and then say we died in an accident, or something! He's a horrible-"

"You will work together. As. Friends." Her smile widens a bit, and her eyes holds a fire inside that is hotter than the place we're going to.

I feel a chill up my spine, and back away, getting unintentionally closer to Blue Coat in the process. I can actually hear her shivering. I gesture to the brat to shut up, but she doesn't take the hint.

"There's no way I'm gonna be able to work with him, and even less as a friend! We-"

"You will. Work together. As friends." With that, her smile is full-on menacing, her eyes promises nothing but pain, and I swear to god Blue Coat is trying to not take a step backward. I look at the nurse, who's shivering like all hell, and Nepgear, who is now on the floor trying not to run to the wall. I look back to the Brat, and she seems to have finally understood, as she nods weakly.

Mina then goes back to normal, as if nothing had happened. "Good. We will see each others back tonight, or tomorrow night at the very least. All of us. Understood?"

Everyone nods, not trusting their voices, and Mina, satisfied, leaves the room, leaving the five of us together.

An uneasy silence encompass us, until I let out a weak laugh.

"No offence for me attempting to kill you twice?" I ask, offering my hand to the Brat.

Still shaken up, she takes it and we shake hand, as she whisper "Truce for now, until we leave Lowee."

"Agreed", I reply, trying to keep my voice level (and failing miserably).

Nepgear then take over. "Um, my name is Nepgear. I figured if we're working together, we should share names?"

Blue Coat shrugs, before taking over. "Name's IF, I'm a guild member and the voice of reason in this group."

"I'm Compa!" cuts the pink nurse. "I've been Ge-ge's and Iffy's friend for a long time, and I'm a nurse in training!"

The Brat then reluctantly add "I'm RED, best wifey hunter around."

I shrug. If they want fancy introduction, I could play the part. "Name's Gyone, lucky guild member, Oracle's errand boy... Oracle's bitch too now, I guess."

"Add failed murderer to the list," RED grumble, and I pause.

"What do you mean?"

She puffs. "You threw my wifey out of a tower! She barely managed to survive the fall! 'What do you mean' indeed! Hmf."

I blink, and then lets out a sigh of relief. Blue- IF notices, however, and raise an eyebrow.

"Glad that it's wrong and the counter is still at 0." I say, answering her unasked question.

As I open the door to leave, I hear her ask someone "it?". But I don't care.

We'll have plenty more opportunities to make a fine player of you~

"Meet at 10:30 at the Western entrance of the city." I say, ignoring the voice. I turn to look at them, to see if they're listening. "I have to buy stuff, my heals are gone."

IF sighs, and grab a bag. "I'll come too, we need to upgrade our gear." I nod, and we leave the room.

I love you, Mina, really. But fuck you and your dumb "friendship" ideas.

Author's footnote

I already hear you, because of the alternate storyline at the top. Don't worry nor expect too much about this. Half the time, I just write whatever comes to mind.

Anyway, quick one! I actually had so much time for once in my life I ended up writing everything in one setting. Came back to it today to tweak it some bit, fix some errors, the like. I'm surprised, this is definitely the longest chapter I wrote. Must come from the two side stories below, the long-ass author's footnote, and that huge exposition by Mina.

Review Time~

flitterflux: I don't think I'll go to full-on insanity, but he's definitely gonna lose morals as the story goes. Nothing is set in stone tho, I may decide to make him "yet another male antagonist in Neptunia" at the end. Or even a saint.

Meh. Probably not, let's stay on the "dumbass villain who means well" category.

AzuMazu: Thanks for the many reviews!

1. (My version of) Neptunia's world setting is definitely videogame-like, aside from a lack of levels and various restrictions. It's really easy to compare it to videogames, especially when the world you're in is apparently called "Gamindustri".

2. Indeed, I didn't go over the first chapters are thoroughly as I do now. By that, I mean I didn't put them on Libreoffice to check for the swirly red lines. Aside from fixing that mistake, I also had Chika mention her name. Just hope I won't forget to update chapter 2 before uploading this one...

3. I would have written an omake about the hatstand's life, but my imagination has ran dry. Sadly. At least Gyone won't be feeling too hot at night!

4. Misunderstandings (and a hefty dose of "harmless" lies) can be funny like that.

5. Glad you liked it ! And this probably won't be the only time Linda and Gyone fights as bosses, through it'll be much less frequent than in the canon game because oh my god do you fight Underling often.

Also, it has been one of my biggest desires to see an Isekai fanfic where the protag didn't know where he was sent off. After a few years of me being a dumbass and not finding any, I decided to write my own, and throw in some things I wanted to also see for good measure.

This story is a bit of a childish "well now I'm not doing it!" that comes from reading too many Oc-insert/Self-insert fanfictions.

10. Of all the Oracles, I feel like I'd be on good terms with Mina the most. So yes, you could say that I am, indeed, into MILFs.

11. I'm not good with directions too, apparently... Thanks, it's fixed!

13. Glad you liked it! Updates might be sporadic, and even stretched out between several months, but do know that I'll finish this story, even if it takes me a year or two. And at the pace it's going, it will probably take a year or two.

Goodness me, it's been more than 6 months since the first chapter... I really need to work on a proper schedule.

Ace-Of-Weeb: To be fair, hearing voices in your head is not good at all.

Maryo Themepark, somewhen

I looked at the dumbass in front of me. For once in his frickin' life, he looked embarrassed. Sheepish. Like he knew he had done something bad.

I release a light growl, and he cowers in fear, getting as far from me as his chair will allow him to. He doesn't dare to flee my wrath.

Yet.

I could start screaming at him, true. I could wail on and on about how much of a disappointment he is to all of us. But that wouldn't make any changes to his behaviour.

And now, there's no reasons for anyone to believe this is revenge for his treatment from before, or his comments.

I throw a folder on the table. He looks warily at it.

"Y'know what's inside this thing?" I say, keeping my voice level. I figured not long ago that these piece of shit losers listen more if you're faking a calm attitude. They also get more nervous.

He shakes his head, but say nothing. So I insist a bit, to make him squirm. "Sure? I mean, it's not like whatever is inside cover any of your fuck-ups. After all, there's only one failure here, ain't there?"

I ain't lying to myself, tho. This is about revenge. Any other grunts, I'd scream at them a bit, give them the worst jobs I could find for a week, maybe beat 'em up a bit myself, but I'd let them go. No, he is special.

"Let's read, then," I start, and I open the folder. Inside is the list of all operations that have been cancelled, and they all tie back to one person.

The dumbass in front of me.

"'Mass distribution of heavily modified Arfoire Chips in the Princess' alley', planned to bring in at least 40% of the credits we'd need for our entire time in Lowee. Of course, we had to cut this one short, because now ASIC is associated with kidnappings. But hey, it's only a minor detail, amirite?"

"There wasn't anyone there though! I checked before I attempted-" he begins, but I don't let him continue.

"Of course, because nobody will hear a child screaming bloody murder as it's kidnapped, and then after that look at their windows to see a shady dumbass drag said kid away as it tries to break free. But oh, what's that? 'A net loss of at least 250k credits'? That's so sad, imagine all the salary cuts we're going to have to do..."

He gulps, and I smile. I'm not near finished, tho. "'A net 75% augmentation in guards at the U Factory, and scouts patrolling the area around it to act as counter spies', which means a lot of people who should be working on finding the Mascot, and then repairing the future tech it's hiding, will be stuck at the complete opposite part of the map. Probably not a result of you dragging the Candidate to the Global Expo, right?"

He gets up from his chair, and start yelling. "It's not my fucking fault! How was I supposed to know I was being followed by more than those brats?"

Before I could answer, another voice raises from behind me. "You weren't, chu."

Warechu step out of my shadow, and continues talking. "Sir Trick warned us that Lowee's Candidates were surely monitored. There's a reason he said he was 'the only one allowed to get his cuties', chu; he's the only one who can do that and get away with it. All you've done is tighten the security around them. You're lucky the Wild Card is no longer to be kept alive, chu." At that, I refrained from frowning. Now is not the time to show weakness. "Not only are you unable to kill him while he's downed, you can't even defeat him in an unfair fight, biased against him. At least your brother's useful enough he came close to kill him."

"Which is why," I say, taking over, "we'll be switching things a bit. Since you can't be trusted with basics tasks, we can't allow you to take over a project as big as what we're doing in the World Labyrinth. So we're taking over. You can have fun spying on the Basilicom, or selling chips on the streets, or whatever else fuck-ups like you do on their own time. All you'll be useful at, I'm afraid."

"What? You can't! I've been given this task by Sir Judge himself, which means-"

Warechu cut him off, by holding the last piece of paper in the folder. "What's that, chu? An order by Lady Magic herself, for you to step down? For shame, you were doing such a good job. You're dismissed, chu."

He gaped, then gasped several times, before getting up angrily, pushing the chair a fair bit in the process. After he left, leaving behind a door he couldn't break by slamming it as hard as he could, I gave a look at Warechu.

"Nah, she didn't. But she did say to do as you saw fit, chu. I just took over for you." he shrugged. "More importantly, I hope for you the kid's not gonna go to the Labyrinth soon."

"Yeah. He better not, because I don't wanna kick his ass."

I, Suleimu the great!, am having a bad day. First, I get all but fired by ASIC. Gone are my dreams to make it big, to dominate the scene as one of the most important person of the msot important group in the world! At least, as long as that Failure is still calling the shots.

It's not fair! I've been there for longer than her! My brother is already a lieutnant! My father died for ASIC! And here I am, thrown away once my (considerably useful) usefulness comes to a close!

Speaking of brother, next bad thing of the day, he's still in the hospital. And he called me. Nay, he summoned me, like some kind of... Of low-level hoodlum! Which is why I'm now waiting in this dirty, disgusting hospital room!

Finally through, I'm allowed inside. My brother is a sorry mess indeed. Broken, burnt, barely conscious. Still conscious enough to talk, sadly for me.

"Suleimu... There you are. I have a task for you."

I scoff. "Don't care, get your own errand boys to do it for you."

"Suleimu, listen to me for once in your pitiful life! Those are important informations that I ask you to acquire-"

"Lalala can't hear you over the sound of me not giving a fuck, brother!"

"SULEIMU!" he yells, and I stop. He never yells, so this actually is really important. "I have found a way to locate the mascot, and for that I need you to bring back the important documents from the N labo. What's left of them anyway. We can't allow the new owner to find and use them."

I pause, shocked. But then I smile. It is a good day to be me, Suleimu, the great! Because finally, I'll climb back the ranks I've lost, and knock back the Failure!

I will get those files, and capture the mascot myself! Suleimu is fucking back!