75 – Boarding 3
35F Train City
After the Regulars at the gate were captured and interrogated, the situation became clear.
"Lady Sasha, it appears that people have taken note of our recent battles and team's rapid growth in strength. With these rumors spreading, I would not be surprised to see many more of these types hoping to curry favor with a new powerful force," said Darul afterwards. "What should we do?"
"I'm neither a charity nor looking to gather a larger group. Anyone who wants to join better bring their own tickets and something of value to contribute. These have neither, so there's no point in letting them join us."
"Understood," Darul said. He turned to the bound up Regulars. "You heard the lady. We have no need for you. Do not attempt to follow us."
We left and began moving towards the path to the elevator.
Contrary to expectations, nobody attacked us, and instead gave us a wide berth, so we got to the elevator without any trouble.
The 3F Restaurant floor passages had few Regulars and was also largely peaceful. This floor had a lot more patrol bots to prevent damage to the shops and eateries.
When we got to the 4F stadium floor, though, it was chaos.
Fights were happening all across the stadiums and even on the galleries. This floor was normally used by the administrators to host events for Regulars to compete for tickets legally throughout the year, or for concerts and other entertainment.
Now it was simply a huge free for all.
That was to be expected though, since there was only one elevator that went down to the entrance section, and it was at the opposite end of the stadium from the elevators that went between the 3F commercial area where we came from.
Other corridors had elevators of their own, from which new teams were coming up, and all led to the central stadium area.
"Get in formation!" Darul yelled.
Our Fishermen took their places behind my wolf and bear monster Beastionts, spearbearers behind them partnered with the two scouts towards the left and right, while the beetle brought up the rear.
Darul and I were at the center, and I rode my tiger Beastiont at normal size while Darul remained on foot with his Light Cubes spread around.
We charged through the stadium area while trying to avoid the other teams and ongoing combat.
This time we weren't left alone.
Spears shot at us from a distance as the opening move for a team which attacked us from the left flank.
We dodged or parried the raining spears.
"Keep the front guarded, there's an ambush team coming from the elevator!" Darul ordered as our team turned to engage the flankers.
Then he ordered the Fishermen to counterattack the left, and one spearbearer-scout combo to standby while the other supported.
I left the two monster Beastionts in the front to defend at first and let Darul command the battle, observing how the team fared with the spell crests I'd given them yesterday.
When they clashed with their opponents, their advantage was immediately obvious. It took only a few short exchanges to overpower the other side, much to their own obvious glee.
"Ahahaha! That's right, I'm one of the elite now you bastards!" One of them shouted manically and charged forward into the heart of the enemy formation after taking down the first opponent.
My lips curled up at the sight of it. To be so excited by a little buff like that. Well, I couldn't blame them. I more than doubled their strength and speed overnight, and now they were above the average Regulars around here after having struggled for years before to make tiny gains with grueling training.
Darul yelled at him to not get cocky through his Pocket connection before ordering the rest of the team to support the assault.
In reality, he was still far from being among the elite. The teams that were attacking us now were obviously in need of more tickets and therefore not an elite team.
The best teams were likely already ahead, possibly waiting at the boarding platform already, and among those, the ones I considered elite could wreck entire teams of this level by themselves.
That was why I had to transfer some items and units over to my Axion avatar, even among the elite E-Rank, there were a number of threats that might be too much for the Avatar to handle with its own stats even while fully buffed.
While Team Darul cleaned up on the flank, the ambush team coming from the front arrived throwing Shinsoo bombs at my Beastionts.
My bear roared and got up in front to just tank them directly while the wolf ran forward around them.
After the bombs went off, my bear was revealed to have only slightly singed fur, to the opposing team's shock.
They had no time to stay stunned though as the wolf swept through and trampled two of their frontline fighters and chomped down on a third before throwing him into the air.
"Your Shinheuh are truly incredible, lady Sasha," said Darul, observing the proceedings.
Once the bear joined the fight in earnest, their team was simply destroyed without even getting close to us.
"This is nothing, they're not even fighting at full power yet," I said. "The enemy is just weak."
"…it seems that everyone is weak in front of your overwhelming strength," said Darul.
"Flattery is unnecessary, Darul. I'm sure you've seen stronger Regulars before, this isn't the time to be impressed yet."
"Of course, my apologies."
These monster-type Beastionts all incorporated superior biologies fit for specific combat roles. Like the Armoriont their skin was like tank armor and they had a lot more of it, being many times larger than a normal Earth animal.
The base strength of the bear was about six times higher than a world champion human, even while being a balanced all-round unit with a lot of biomass devoted to defense and survivability.
That base strength was already on par with the Reinforced Regulars on my team, and then they had their own Reinforcement that almost tripled it, which the Beastionts hadn't activated yet.
The wolf was built for speed, riding, and group fights that last a long time rather than maximizing attack power.
My tiger, while superficially similar in shape to the wolf was, like actual tigers, specialized in instantly ending single combat duels with a savage attack, thus serving as a great personal ride for a VIP like me.
The beetle was mostly good for being heavily armored and flying stably to carry a large group over short distances.
I had some other models, but the point was that they were all strong, stronger than I could even buff my main body since their base stats were so high with the extra biomass. In fact, in their specific combat roles they all edged out Axie, which used the Rhyme dragon template. That one was just the best all-around flying fighter, but due to it not possessing its magical traits from FoZ, it was inferior on basic stats compared to the heavy ground units.
They had little use back on Worm due to the size limit of our portals, and Taylor being unable to directly control the ones that weren't bugs, but in my hands now with my spells, they were much more useful.
As we continued moving forward, a beam of Shinsoo came towards me.
Darul reacted quickly and blocked it with a Lighthouse barrier.
"Everyone, aim for the Anima!" A voice shouted from the right. It seemed to be one of the teams fighting at the center of the stadium who had won their bout with whomever else they fought.
"A Wave Controller! Protect Lady Sasha!" Darul shouted as the new team rushed towards us.
Our Spearbearers returned fire with the Scouts helping to target.
An enemy Fisherman charged right in and attacked the closest Spearbearer and Scout at the same time, apparently good enough to match them both even with Reinforcement.
Another one came towards me, and while the Wave Controller continued suppressive fire to prevent our own Fishermen from getting back into our formation and keep Darul busy with his barrier. He valiantly tried to block the Fisherman in melee at the same time but didn't look like he would succeed.
I glanced at my Beastionts who were not coming after I mentally sent the order, surprised to see that they had Light Cubes around them emitting Shinsoo pressure fields making it difficult to move.
That was an unfortunate weakness of these Beastionts…the enemy team had lucked out or figured it out somehow, my Beastionts had terrible Shinsoo resistance so minimally raising the Shinsoo pressure could become quite crippling regardless of their physical stats.
Just then,
"Now's our chance, get her!"
I honed in on the enemy commander momentarily, a woman with very short blonde hair in a gold dress, carrying what seemed to be a Shinsoo wand to help her with the beam attacks.
And then the Fisherman got around Darul to attack me directly, his fist enveloped in a glow that indicated he was proficient in Shinsoo for close combat.
Another streak of light, actually a powered spear this time, also came towards me from a different angle.
This team wasn't bad at all, good tactics and their members were all individually quite good, worthy of being ticket holders.
Just as the Fisherman and the spear attack were about to hit me, my tiger lunged while decompressing to its true size as a monster-type Beastiont, and tackled the Fisherman to the ground, pinning him with one paw.
The spear flew by me harmlessly once we moved.
"Shit! Stop that Shinheuh with a control field!" The commanding woman shouted.
"I don't have any more Cubes!" Their Lightbearer protested.
"Me neither!" Said their other Lightbearer.
I smirked at them. "An admirable effort. But not nearly enough."
One Fishermen finally rejoined our side and pushed back the other Fisherman that was troubling our Spearbearer and Scout. The other one had gotten hit by a Shinsoo beam and might be out of action for a while.
Now we had the numbers advantage and could push a counterattack.
"Look, I told you, they're too strong, all of you need to team up with us to take them down!" The enemy commander shouted in a different direction.
"Fine! We'll do it your way!"
And several other groups started coming towards us, one from behind and the other diagonally between the other two groups.
"Lady Sasha, there's too many of them! We can't defeat them all, you should make a break for the elevator!" Darul exclaimed. "We'll cover your back!"
"No need for that, go pick up Fisherman 2 and see if he needs treatment. I will handle this," I said.
He looked taken aback for a moment before nodding and moving. "Understood."
Next, I materialized my Arms Inventory, and opened another capsule.
From them emerged three more wolf monsters that immediately charged towards the team that was suppressing my other Beastionts.
They howled as Reinforcement activated.
"Ahhh!" The enemy Lightbearers screamed as the wolves crossed the distance in seconds and tackled them.
They shrugged off the enemy spearbearers and wave controller's attacks like nothing, and quickly disabled the Lightbearers.
Their Shinsoo fields were released, and I set the rest of my Beastionts on the enemies.
The beetle, being the closest one that was still positioned at our rear, turned towards the incoming new groups and opened fire.
An explosion of liquid burst forth, raining burning acid and blocking their advance as several of them screamed after getting hit.
My first wolf and the bear came back, the bear took a guarding stance to cover the Regulars on my team, while the wolf joined its brethren.
While there was no hard limit on the number of Beastionts I could have, I was in practice limited by how many I could coordinate, their upkeep since they still needed to be fed from time to time, and the capacity of my Bowls.
I could only effectively coordinate 3 units at a time, but the wolf packs could best coordinate among themselves, so they were the ones I relied on in a numbers contest. And that was why I opted for specialized roles so that they could react even if I didn't successfully give any direct orders in time.
Because I fought through five Irregular tests on my own this year and had to prepare for this Hell Train adventure, I substantially expanded my forces during that time.
One of the Challenge tests also randomly awarded me new Bowls in my preferred ball capsule style, which helped a lot.
It didn't take long before all the opposing forces were defeated. I left them mostly alive if heavily wounded, as I had nothing to gain from killing them, and no idea if any of these people might be plot-related. The wave controller team felt vaguely familiar.
My Beastionts returned after the wolves howled in victory, then our team went to loot tickets from the defeated.
Everyone in the team was still in silent shock even as we moved towards the elevator again, bereft of any more opposition, and having acquired four new tickets, bringing our total to eleven.
"I see now what you meant before lady Sasha. To think that you were still holding back…this level of strength does make the previous victories look unimpressive," said Darul. "Forgive me for asking, but why do you even need a mediocre team like us? Rather than serving you, it feels as if you are the one helping us."
"It's fine. Does everyone else feel that way too?" I asked, looking around and getting nods in return.
"Of course, I understand why. The truth is, I don't really need you guys. I told you when we first met, didn't I? I wanted some meat shields to deal with trash that bothered me, preferably ones that could think for themselves so I wouldn't have to spend energy commanding them. That's the reason. Isn't it annoying to swat flies all the time? You're doing a good job, by the way."
"I see. Then, we will continue to serve you to the best of our abilities," said Darul, receiving a bunch of affirmations from the team.
From the elevator down to the 1F entrance platform, we didn't meet any more teams, though there were many signs of battle along the way.
At the entrance platform, we saw the gate was open. Previously, an extremely powerful train guardian called Mirotic would be camped here, preventing Regulars from trying to board before the departure date, but today it was gone with the gate opening up.
Beyond the gate was a spiraling staircase that went upwards.
A flying bird machine greeted us and told us to follow it to the Train platform as it started flying up slowly.
Instead of walking up the staircase, I put most of the monster Beastionts back in their Bowls, except the beetle, and my personal bodyguards.
Then we rode the beetle as it flew up through the hollow center of the staircase.
Seeing that we were moving quickly, the bird machine also sped up and took the straight center path instead.
When we finally reached the top, the Hell Train came into view.
A gargantuan structure that dwarfed the Workshop's Archimedes floating ship many times over.
It also floated high in the air, and had a single glowing cabin entrance, and floating stairs that led to it from the Skyscraper platform. Other compartment entrances were closed.
The Skyscraper platform itself was empty. It seemed that other ticketers who got here ahead of us had already boarded.
"We're really going on the Hell Train!" Exclaimed Fisherman 2.
"A-amazing! It's so…huge!" said Maid.
"Don't get too excited, the toughest part is ahead," said Darul. "Everyone on that Train is among the elite, and the tests are no joke either."
"That's right. From here on, we will be taking the tests on the Train itself for each Floor and there's no room for failure or trying again, you'll just be forced off," I said. "Let me say this clearly so there are no misunderstandings. I have certain objectives on the Hell Train so I will be getting off before the Last Station and you'll all be free to leave then. Many of the enemies and tests on the Train are extremely dangerous. I will handle the most dangerous threats, so as long as you're with me, you'll be able to go much farther than you would on your own. Your job is simply to stop other Regulars and lower level enemies from interfering with me."
"Yes, ma'am!"
O O O
30F Archimedes
I was introduced to the newer members of Ship's team not long after we finished our discussion.
Of course, I already knew them through controlling Axie on the team and participating in all the tests together, but it was the first time we'd met in person.
Verdi, their Anima who looked like a young girl in her early teens, had been recruited by the time Androssi joined up on the 25th Floor, and didn't seem to look any different or older. She was eager to show me the new playmates she captured during the previous phase of the Workshop Battle—Prince and Miseng from the Sweet and Sour team.
Obviously I pretended not to know these two and they had enough wits about them to do the same. They would be fine anyways, and would even benefit from the experience, as Verdi had a technique she called "Doll Making" which would significantly enhance somebody's Shinsoo power by wearing one of her specially grown flowers.
All in all, Verdi was quite an impressive addition to the team, and her ability as an Anima could be considered to be superior to my own, even though I had the water spirits to help me. I had even learned a few things about being a normal Anima from her in exchange for letting her put a flower on Axie, which ended up doing nothing, to our mutual disappointment.
Vespa, the very short part-bee species member of the team, was moody and not too interested in talking much.
She was probably among the weaker members of the team albeit very fast as a natural flier, though Ship himself was almost certainly the weakest, in terms of direct combat potential. Both were scouts though, so they didn't need to be strong, merely used strategically.
O O O
In the evening, I met Androssi in her luxuriously huge solo suite, which was supposedly assigned to her because she found Bong Bong, but probably just VIP treatment because she was a Princess.
"Baam certainly seems different. But also still the same. As if they couldn't change him in spite of everything that happened. Still getting attached so easily to anyone by his side," said Androssi. "Though he is a lot stronger now."
She laid on a reclining beach chair at the open half-circle terrace serving as the balcony of her suite, looking up at the fake sky.
"He certainly is. And if all goes well, he'll get something that will accelerate his growth to incredible levels at the end of the Workshop Battle," I said, standing beside her, cycling mana and personally assisting the Spirit Cluster Core in converting Shinsoo to help refill what I'd used for controlling my Avatar and all my familiars during the bullet game.
"The long hair doesn't suit him though. Hiding his eyes like that, it makes him look dangerous and tragic."
"He's playing the role well," I said.
"I think it suits him pretty well. Since he is dangerous and tragic right now," said Derf, now normal sized and floating in the air. "Could wear more black and gothic though."
"You know about gothic styles?" I asked.
"Sure. It's made the rounds a few times over the millennia, but usually far away from Gotha, go figure. Why the last time it became trendy again was only a hundred years ago, in east Gallia," said Derf.
"Well I don't like it. He was much cuter with those big innocent eyes and naïve looking face," said Androssi with a sigh. "But never mind that. Why are there so many prisoners and intruders on this ship? I saw a whole hall full of them earlier. The one I captured said Emily is an actual person trapped on this ship and he's trying to save her."
"Isn't it obvious? All of them are trying to save Emily." I said.
"Really? So she's just leading all of them on at once? That's impressive," said Androssi. "She might have more fans than me."
I shrugged. "There are lots of lonely people. You know how the Tower is. Not many can claim to have real friends, and Emily is the only one they can talk to, who won't stab them in the back in the next test."
"Yet she led them all here to get caught," said Androssi.
"Or on a futile mission to save her," said Derf. "She could be telling the truth. A maiden locked in a tower, a desperate cry for help, to anyone who'd listen!"
"Uh huh. Do you really think she's real?"
"She is. And she does need saving," I said.
"What, seriously?"
"She's a Living Ignition Weapon, just like the two Devils. Just like Baam too. Except, she's already been melted down and has no body anymore. She was the test case for what the other FUG faction wants to do with Baam," I said.
"A test case? They're trying to melt him down too? Do we need to get involved in this then?" Androssi asked.
"Not for Emily no. A certain person has that part covered already," I said. "But I do have an interest in their research data, and depending on how things go, we may need to act to stop them from doing it to Baam during the Workshop Battle."
"A certain person? Who?"
"Oh you know. That person, of course," said Derf.
"I don't. I bet you don't either," said Androssi.
"I ain't taking that bet," said Derf.
"You do know this person, in fact," I said. "Our mutual acquaintance. Who probably taught Emily how to get all these guys to go on a suicide mission to chase after her."
Androssi's face was only confused for a short moment before she sprang up into a sitting position with a sharp look at me.
"No way."
"Yes way," said Derf.
"It can't be who I'm thinking of right now."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Rachel?"
I nodded.
"Okay…I really shouldn't be surprised. Have you been in contact with her this whole time?"
"Occasionally. We had a call a couple of months ago."
"Is she here?" Androssi looked troubled at the thought.
"No. She sent someone in her stead."
Androssi snorted. "Of course she sent somebody instead of showing up herself. Is she still pretending to be crippled?"
"I don't think so. She should be focused on gathering new members for her team right now, after escaping from Khun."
"Hm…" Androssi laid back down. "Why is she even trying to save Emily?"
"Who knows?" I said, shrugging. "She didn't tell me. Maybe she feels sympathetic, towards a fellow girl that feels powerless, who doesn't even have a body anymore. Or maybe it's just because Emily is actually quite powerful, as an entity that can coordinate people on a massive scale. There is also what would happen if she were to Ignite for Rachel, but I have no idea what the result would be."
"Is there a reason Emily brought over all these intruders then?"
"A distraction at the right time, maybe," I said, contemplatively. "I could probably use that chance to break in to steal some of their research data, if something like that happens. Though extracting the relevant data in a useful form is still a problem."
In the original story, I only remembered that the prisoners were released and caused some problems for the hosts during the final round of the Workshop Battle. However, it wasn't anyone from Rachel's group that released them, so it might not have been part of the plan, unless Emily predicted or instigated it somehow.
"Well, whatever. Sounds like I don't need to care about this."
"Yaawwn. I stopped caring 10 minutes ago," said Derf. "What were we talking about?"
"Go back to sleep, you layabout," said Androssi.
"Says the girl actually laying about," said Derf. "I'm only doing nothing because I got nobody to fight. I'm a sword, that's all I need to do. But my partner barely uses me now, preferring to use all his other new fancy shmancy skills first."
"This is aromatherapy, for your information. And I can put you to work. Come here," said Androssi, grabbing onto Derf's handle and then pouring a large amount of oils onto his blade.
"Woah woah, what are you doing? That is not the right way to do maintenance!" Derf protested. "What is this stuff, it's going to dull my edge! Stop at once!"
"Good, because I don't want to cut myself," said Androssi, before starting to slather the oil on her legs, using the sword for reach so that she didn't have to sit up to do it.
"Oooh. I take that back. Yes, this is fine. Please continue rubbing me against your legs. How about you unsheathe my outer layer so I can soften up for you?" asked Derf.
"Shut up, or I'll stop."
"Yes, ma'am!"
O O O