80 – Team Rachel

35F Hell Train

After realizing who it was, I instructed Maid to let them follow her Observer back to our camp.

"Oh it's you guys," said Boro, upon arrival. "I didn't expect to see anyone this far ahead already, so when we heard the sounds of battle at night, we came over to see if it was newbies that needed help. Most teams have at least one old timer with them that knows to stop moving at night when the enemies spawn."

"How kind of you…" said Darul with suspicion in his eyes. "And despite all these enemies spawning, it was easy for you to move around and even come to help another group?"

Boro shrugged. "That's the benefit of experience. There are some patterns to the way these things spawn, some passages that are easier to get through, and methods to avoid them. Like this spot you found, I knew about it being a safe area so we just started heading here after it was clear the battle was already over and we couldn't find anyone there."

"However, this spot is already occupied," said Darul.

"I can see that. But how about we share it? There's enough space for both our teams. We can even team up for a while, I could guide you guys. Just a temporary alliance of convenience, nothing more."

"…we'll consider it. Go back outside for a moment and I'll give you an answer shortly." Said Darul.

After that, Darul came to the back where I was sitting on a Cube pretending to meditate, and asked for my opinion.

"It would be convenient to have him lead the way for a while. Our group will have the upper hand if there's a conflict since theirs is smaller and weaker. You can accept it if you want," I said. "I don't mind either way."

Following some more discussions with his teammates, eventually Darul accepted the offer.

O O O

30F Archimedes

The rest of the Workshop Battle was a very complicated mess.

First, Team FUG and Team Mad Dog, with the only gamblers that had points left following the all-in Ran vs. Anak fight, were pitted against each other in a sort of capture the flag game.

Then the hosts had decided to run a simultaneous "Development Tournament" in which all the other gamblers would fight against each other in a separate section, where the winners would obtain the right to move to the main arena and join the capture the flag game.

At the Development Tournament they'd all start with a basic amount of points, select a vanguard Regular to deploy first, who needed to defeat opposing Regulars to earn more points. They'd use those newly earned points to summon in more teammates at the summoning stations (teleportation platforms).

Each of the qualifying Regulars from the previous Plug Battle had a point value assigned, based on the hosts' assessment of their combat strength, so stronger Regulars were more expensive to summon, but any gambler could summon any they could afford to the field.

Whether because of FUG's interference or the hosts' honest assessment, my Axion persona ended up costing 2 million points, which was twice that of Androssi, Viole, and the Mad Dog Varagarv, who were 1 million each.

In practice, this meant it was impossible to summon me, as there simply weren't enough opportunities to earn that many points.

Not that I cared, since I didn't even want to participate in it. There were too many people, betrayals, and double-betrayals overcomplicating things, and this part of the event had little to do with my interests.

So I just controlled Gyetang a little bit with Derf, making some fights easier for Khun's team, and mostly left things to progress on their own.

In the main arena, various members of Team Mad Dog and Team FUG betrayed each other, switched sides, revealed their true colors, forfeited or abandoned the game until the audiences watching had no idea what was happening anymore, and the Workshop hosts disappeared mid-way to deal with a different crisis.

Beta smuggled himself into the test by swallowing a parasite Regular that had been qualified, crashed the Development arena fighting every team he saw, then got to the main arena and tricked Viole into getting trapped with the Thorn, trying to make him taste despair.

Then Viole turned things around and absorbed the Thorn, Androssi got successfully summoned by Khun's team and defeated Varagarv, Reflejo took Hwa Ryun hostage after her identity was exposed, and forced a fight with Viole after he revealed B-Rank power he received from an FUG Ranker...

Anyways, it was complete chaos, but somehow most of it remained the same, as canon. Not a surprise though because almost every gambler, team, and participant was controlled by the anti-Viole FUG factions or influenced by FUG members in some fashion.

Talk about a rigged tournament, right?

As for me, I snuck away in the middle of the chaos of Beta crashing the tournament and a mass breakout of prisoners on the Archimedes (the ones that were all trying to save Emily but got caught by the Workshop patrols).

Most of the Workshop had already been empty once Beta had escaped during the party, but now there was literally nobody in there.

My Beastiont reconnaissance unit had managed to find a machine where one of Sophia's assistant researchers had forgotten to log out in the confusion, and there I downloaded as many files as I could, before sweeping physical documents that might be of use.

There was way too much useless or irrelevant content in there to grab it all and sort through in a reasonable time, but my goal wasn't to learn all the minute details of their experiments or the hard data. I was not an expert researcher and could hardly make sense of that sort of content.

I just needed to find some interpretive journals/notes from the researchers to double check the plausibility of whatever Cassano might have gotten from Sophia directly.

And for once, Offensive Bias would come in useful, despite being unable to connect to the Shinsoo-based machines, he could still process the physical documents and the ones I downloaded into my Lighthouse cubes, through optical scanning.

Next, I broke into the areas where they stored Ignition Liquid, Boiling Acid, components, catalysts, and related experimental inputs/products, grabbing containers from sealed vaults, shelves, and sucking in liquid from their water tanks with my own prepared containers.

Some of it I stuffed straight into Manbarondenna, but other things were already compressed and so the bag wouldn't take them, so I put the rest into uncompressed Lighthouse Cubes.

These storage items in ToG were incredibly convenient, and I'd surely miss their use on other planes without Shinsoo. With so much stuff packed though, my Avatar Body couldn't control any more Cubes for combat purposes, a minor drawback until I could store this stuff somewhere else.

Finally, I met up with Cassano after he also ditched the tournament after helping Reflejo take Hwa Ryun hostage and defeat Horyang, taking Horyang's half of the Devil at the same time when his 'brother' Living Ignition Weapon refused to join him.

I waited for him on the second floor of the Archimedes, and then followed him to the Acorn Workshop's hidden lower entrance to Emily's containment facility.

"Let's not waste any time," said Cassano to me.

Cassano slotted into a panel beside the entrance the custom Compression Flask he traded for from Madoraco, an FUG affiliated Ranker merchant who was one of the main forces behind the plan to trap Viole in the Workshop Battle.

The flask began to turn blue from its former red color.

Just then, an orange haired guy with goggles showed up from another hall.

"Who are you guys?" He asked, keeping some distance.

"You're a Traveler deceived by Emily? I'm surprised you made it this far," said Cassano.

"Then you're also…?"

"No. I'm here to get her out. Since you made it this far, I'll show you the truth about the Emily who deceived you."

The door to the facility opened, and together we went inside to see "Emily".

There was a huge vertical water tank with the label "EMILY-01" on it. Inside was…well, some kind of shapeless blob.

The tank connected to another gigantic egg-like structure further inside the facility.

Here, Cassano explained the nature of Emily to the Traveler, and the people involved.

An experiment in which a Living Ignition Weapon had been created, and that person was melted down so that it became a weapon others could harness.

Where the Workshop hosts wanted to recruit people for their own purposes, and manipulate them through Emily, thus assembling the Travelers.

FUG desired the power to create an ultimate weapon, and through Madoraco the merchant Ranker, provided funds to conduct the research and transport Emily with a special Flask.

In his explanation, Cassano didn't mention that the Flask was now in Cassano's hands since Madoraco betrayed the Workshop hosts.

"But..she really told me that she's alive! She begged me to come save her!" The Traveler shouted.

"It was all a lie to lure you people here. Or maybe she's delusional, believing that she was still alive despite being trapped in the tank," Cassano said coldly.

"That's…too cruel."

"I'm going to change this ridiculous tower, with the power of this weapon," Cassano declared, then walked away. "If you want to leave, then come with me."

The despairing Traveler followed listlessly.

As we moved out of the facility, I asked, "So, you already got the data?"

"I got it before the last round started. You just need to guard me until the delivery is finished," said Cassano. "Then I'll give it to you."

"Good."

Although I was asked to "guard" him, our escape from the Archimedes was quite peaceful. It seemed there was already a route prepared for him.

We made our way out through some hidden passages to a flying vehicle, where we embarked and exited the Archimedes ship from a side hanger, leaving the docked ship and the island where the chaos of the final round of the Workshop Battle was happening.

I vaguely kept track of the events through Gyetang and Yihwa, who had both been successfully summoned into the field.

Anyways, in the end, even Rankers got involved once FUG tried to melt Viole and the entire island where the tournament was happening with a massive amount of Boiling Acid.

Fortunately for Viole, the FUG Rankers were held off by Quant and Lero Ro, our old instructors from the 2nd Floor, whom had joined Wolhaiksong, the Irregular Urek Mazino's organization, and snuck into the area to help.

At some point during the intense situation, Gyetang heroically sacrificed himself under Derf's control trying to help stall the FUG Rankers, at which point, that Derf sword got destroyed so Derf moved to a second fake Derf sword I'd prepared with this avatar.

And of course, Viole and co., escaped the island and reunited with the old second floor team, while "capturing" Hwa Ryun, because Khun considered her too suspicious as an FUG member to treat as an ally despite her help.

I was confident she would be fine regardless and it was probably all part of her plan (making Baam feel guilty about his old friends mistreating her, probably) because she didn't ask me to rescue her so I simply minded my own business and left it alone.

O O O

A day later…

[Interlude]

Wangnan woke up and after getting caught up on the situation from Yihwa, found Ship Leesoo having a friendly conversation with Akraptor and Prince. Other members of both teams were scattered about, exercising, playing games, etc.

They'd been brought to a resort run by Wolhaiksong to recuperate.

"…please take care of Baam for us," said Ship, after some small talk and praising Wangnan.

"Wait, what do you mean? You're not going up with Viole?"

"We can't. We're already D-Rank Regulars, actually. We just stayed here to participate in the Workshop Battle, but now we're going to go up again. So we can't climb with Baam," said Ship. "We have our own goals, so we can't stop. Hurry and catch up to us."

Later in the day, Wangnan talked to Akraptor alone.

"Hey, what about Axion?" Wangnan asked. "Everyone was summoned and escaped, right? That's what flamethrower told me…but he's not with Viole's old teammates either. Did something happen?"

"It was difficult to summon him because of his points cost, but he said he had an alternative escape route. According to Yeon, he made it out, but has other things to do so he left on his own afterwards," said Akraptor.

"So we're really on our own now," said Wangnan. "But at least we still have Viole. I thought we'd have to part ways here."

"So did I. We'll also have that Khun guy, apparently."

"What? So we have to keep going through that hellish training?" Wangnan cried.

"What's wrong with that? Viole might have escaped FUG, but it's only going to get harder from here," said Yihwa, suddenly appearing from behind them.

"Ack! Flamethrower, what the heck?" Wangnan jolted around.

"We need to quickly get a lot stronger, or we'll fall behind and become burdens. You almost died this time, you know? There was literally a hole in your chest, I don't even know how you survived that," said Yihwa with a glare.

"That's…ugh. When did you start worrying about me?"

"I don't care about you, smelly pig. But we can't get complacent just because Viole's back. You should've realized it by now, right? How much of a gap there is between our team and Viole's friends, or his enemies. We can't rely on other people supporting and carrying us up forever. It's time to stand on our own!"

"You seemed really fired up. Is that what Axion told you? That you needed to become more independent?" Akraptor asked.

"That's not true! He said that about our whole team!"

"Well, he's not wrong…" said Wangnan.

Meanwhile…

Androssi stormed up to Baam who was quietly looking out a balcony.

"Huh?" Baam made a confused expression as Androssi grabbed him by the collar.

"Baam, we're going on a date," Androssi said, glaring at him. "Today."

"A date? Why, all of a sudden…with me?"

"Because I said so. You promised to eat Axion's chicken pie together with me, remember? But since that jerk ran off on his own again, you and I will go on a date instead. Got it? We're going to have a great time, by ourselves, without him, and he's going to regret missing out!"

"Uh, okay." Baam struggled to recall when he made such a promise, but in the end, simply went along with Androssi's demand.

The next day, their date became the subject of spying from Rak, Yihwa, and Prince.

Khun Aguero Agnis met with Novick and Ran after disciplining the spies, without actually stopping them.

"Yo Khun. So how are things?" Novick asked.

"I have some surveillance. Just hope the princess doesn't do anything reckless," said Khun, while thinking of Rak, Yihwa, and Prince.

"But what are you going to do now? Are we going to team up with them?"

"I guess…what happened with our original team is unthinkable…"

"What happened to Gyetang and Dan wasn't your fault, Khun," said Novick.

"No it's all my fault. That's why I can't let it end like this…"

Then he explained his new plan. Khun A.A. and Baam would be in the 'main' team, while Novick and Ran would form the secondary team. Both would help each other and exchange info while climbing, but the secondary team would be responsible for finding and eliminating Rachel.

O O O

30th Floor, Abandoned Castle

Far away, on an island with a ruined old castle, a group of four brown-cloaked hooded figures stood in a grand stone hall where the walls were cracked and pillars were crumbling from age.

One figure stood at the center upon a raised circular platform, looking upwards at something only she could see, while another stood behind her closely.

The large stone doors to the hall were slowly pushed open, revealing three newcomers, one of which also wore a brown cloak and hood, with a mask.

The other two were Cassano and the Traveler.

"Welcome," the blonde girl on the platform lowered her hood and smiled. "I was worried something bad might have happened on the Archimedes."

The Traveler took one look at Rachel and felt an ominous vibe. 'Who is she? What's this feeling?'

"It was nothing troubling, although I couldn't bring my comrade with me," said Cassano, walking towards the apparent leader of this group.

"And did you bring the item?" Rachel asked.

"I did. Here it is." Cassano showed the Flask containing Emily in his hand.

"Let me see," said the figure behind Rachel, also taking off his hood, to reveal a brown skinned white haired man. It was Michael, one of the double agents planted by Rachel on the team Khun had assembled. "I need to check it to proceed with the plan."

Michael came down from the stone platform and walked to Cassano, taking the Flask.

"Good work, Mr. Cassano," said Rachel.

"By the way, this man claims to know you, Miss Rachel," said Cassano, gesturing to the cloaked figure which arrived with him.

"Oh?" Rachel tilted her head, now looking more closely at the figure's style of dress which seemed reminiscent of her own group's. "He's not a Traveler?"

"No, he assisted me with some things, and made a deal with me, so I brought him along," said Cassano. "He calls himself 'A'."

Taking his cue, the figure walked forward towards Rachel without a word.

Michael frowned at the figure walking past him, then made eye contact with the other two standing on Rachel's other side.

The duo jumped in front of her immediately. The female one had long orange hair overflowing from her shoulder down in front of her chest, while the male had a huge wrapped weapon on his back.

"Hey you. Stand back a little, until we know who you are," said the man.

'A' stopped and chuckled. "Buelsar Elliot. One of Yama's Mad Dogs. From the strength of your Shinsoo, it seems that you are indeed stronger than Varagarv."

"Hoh? Did you meet him at the Workshop Battle? Judging from your tone, you must be pretty good yourself. But I should warn you, I'm a D-Rank. I don't know if you really fought him or you're just posturing, but either way, I hope you aren't thinking you're a match for me because of that," said Buelsar.

"Is that so? It seems that you've acquired some powerful teammates, Rachel," said A. "But, it feels like there's a couple missing still…"

"Who are you?" Rachel asked with a puzzled expression. "Are you here to join us?"

"Well…not exactly? I didn't originally plan to show up this early. But since Cassano kindly invited me, I couldn't turn him down," said A. "He has something I want, after all."

Rachel made a contemplative face for a moment before looking towards Cassano for an explanation.

"He wants some data from the Workshop. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands…so I agreed to give it to him only if he came with me. I wanted to be sure that he told the truth about being your associate, Miss Rachel," said Cassano.

Although the two acted as if Rachel was unaware of the situation, in reality Cassano had already sent her a message ahead of time informing her of it.

"In that case…aren't you going to take off your mask?" Rachel asked A. "I can't tell who you are otherwise."

"That's not a bad idea. But…I should clarify something first. Although I praised your cleverness in devising this strategy, Cassano, the deal we made was in fact, merely for me to guard you until your mission was complete. Revealing my identity was not a condition required," said A.

"What's up with this joker? Quit stalling and take it off already, in case you haven't noticed, you're surrounded," said the other hooded female figure standing beside Buelsar. "Don't try any funny business. If you really are Miss Rachel's acquaintance, why would you have a problem with that?"

A laughed, which sent everyone present on edge.

"No matter how you scheme, you still need the strength to back it up. Isn't that right, Rachel? So how about we play a little game? If you or your team can take my mask off by force, then I will join you. Otherwise, if I defeat you all without losing my mask, then I will just leave after Cassano hands over the data."

O O O

[Kaleidus]

I thought about my strategy while on the way here with Cassano.

Originally I had planned to simply lay low with this avatar after acquiring the Acorn Workshop's data and materials, to quietly study them by myself.

Then I'd join up with Rachel when her team went on the Hell Train next year.

Although it might strain my relationships with Team Ship and Team Sweet and Sour once they found out, it was simply more convenient to be in Rachel's party at that point for my own goals. I had nothing to gain from being with those other teams during those events, after all.

But since I was already here as part of the deal with Cassano, I could also just join her early.

Her team was top tier in the current bracket, and didn't really need me to help in the tests, so I could still spend my time studying Ignition Liquid while benefiting from some perks of being in her party.

There were, after all, two Living Ignition Weapons here now, plus a teammate that should have a power I was interested in studying, although that guy didn't seem to be here yet.

On top of Rachel being a decent summoner candidate as well, and possibly having useful FUG connections with different factions.

So it was with this in mind that I offered the game, with the intention of ultimately losing if they were too strong, or just conceding if I considered their performance good enough.

And it would allow me a chance to go all out with this avatar and see Rachel's progress.

After hearing my proposal, however, Rachel didn't immediately agree to it.

"Wait! Whoever you are, I'm not going to force you if you don't want to join, and if you had a deal with Mr. Cassano, I think it should just be honored," said Rachel, giving a meaningful look to Cassano.

"Understood," said Cassano, opening his Pocket and retrieving a data stick.

"Indeed, a deal should be honored on the terms agreed to. A wise decision from a fair leader," I said, turning back to Cassano and taking the data stick, then putting it away in my own Pocket.

"Rachel, are you really going to just let him go no questions asked?" asked the other hooded female figure. "Even after he used your name as leverage to make that deal?"

"That's not enough of a reason to treat him like an enemy, when it looks like he's cooperated with Mr. Cassano so far. It's impolite of him not to show me his face after coming all this way, but we have more important things to do than get upset over something like that," said Rachel.

I turned and faced the two of them again. "But my offer is still open to you. If you're confident in your team. Now that I've received my payment, this can just be a friendly wager between us."

"You against our whole team, that's a bit unfair, don't you think, especially if we only have to take off your mask?" Rachel asked skeptically. "Unless you're actually hoping to lose and join us? That's not going to work, you know. I won't just let any random person join. Do you even know what our purpose is?"

I just laughed provocatively. "Any random person…I'm sure you'll change your tune after you realize how difficult this game actually is for you. But you're right that it's a bit unfair…since your team isn't fully assembled yet, but don't worry, I'm willing to stay until they arrive, so you can have another try after losing."

"I don't know why you know so much, but now you're being ridiculous! I was trying to be nice, but you're just asking for a beating!" Rachel said with grit teeth.

"Some people just need to be taught physical lessons," said the orange haired woman. "I'll take care of this guy!"

Without waiting for Rachel's approval, the woman raised her right hand and formed a golden trident out of Shinsoo, rushing towards A.

"Don't be rash, Angel!" Rachel shouted, "We don't know what he can do!"

"Who cares? I'll crush him anyways!"

Rachel still didn't have much discipline over them, I noted. But that might be too much to expect for this particular team that she's only using as a stepping stone. Still, although it was years ago and our time together was short, I hoped she at least made some changes after receiving my advice.

O O O

[Interlude]

'She's as fast as the top E-Ranks! Who the heck are these people?!' The Traveler thought while backing away subconsciously in a sweat.

The masked 'A' stood still until the last moment before Angel's trident almost stabbed into his face, blurred to the side without apparently moving his legs, and then whirled around to strike her back with his palm.

From the point of contact a spiraling Shinsoo wave blasted out and sent Angel flying away in concert with her own prior momentum.

"A shaped Shinsoo Quality already? Not bad," said A, looking unruffled. "That's rare on these Floors."

"Floral Butterfly Piercing Technique…so you are from FUG after all," said Buelsar, observing closely, but not interfering or showing any concern for Angel. "We should keep him alive."

Angel flipped around and stopped her momentum, apparently not hurt much by the attack, but her hood fell off to reveal an angry expression.

"Don't get cocky, you bastard. That movement technique of yours might be tricky, but it's just a trick!"

Suddenly her blue eyes began to glow, small floating white wings came out the back of her cloak, and a yellow halo formed on top of her head.

She rushed towards A once again, but this time airborne, approaching A at an angle from the air.

This time, A barely dodged with some footwork, then proceeded to demonstrate extraordinary martial arts skill, repeatedly dodging Angel's attacks in a close melee by twisting his torso, leaning away, stepping aside, and occasionally parrying with a palm imbued with Shinsoo waves.

"No tricks this time," said A, while expertly weaving around his opponent.

"Stay still!"

"No thanks," said A. Then he unnaturally blurred aside again—only this time, he curved upwards and was right above her in a flash.

With a downwards straight kick, he forced her straight into the ground facedown and held his foot on her back, making it difficult for her to exert force to get out of the hold.

"Flying is indeed another rare sight at this level, but unfortunately that won't help you against me either," said A. "I suggest you work with your teammates instead."

Although Angel's speed was impressive compared to E-Rank Regulars, and significantly faster than A's Reinforced physical speed, it was clear that A's skill greatly exceeded hers.

Moreover, her physical speed was still much slower than the weakened Omni-Flight spell and the derivative Burstshift Kaleidus could use through this Avatar Body, even with this being the less compatible Axion model compared to Sasha.

Critically, because this model didn't have the Endbringer crystal internal armor weighing it down either, the cost to use that spell in sub-second bursts was almost negligible.

As Kaleidus assessed the preliminary battle results, he keenly felt the fruits of his combat training with Ha Jinsung.

Unlike the prior years, the last two had been focused almost entirely on direct combat development rather than spell research, and the areas of growth changed accordingly.

"Shut up, I'm not done!" Angel growled, then suddenly black round balls exploded from underneath her cloak.

Hundreds of them enlarged as they flew into the air surrounding A, becoming various sizes, some larger than people, revealing their nature as metallic spiked and winged lifeforms with rows of sharp teeth, making sounds like nails on metal.

'A' jumped off to avoid them, Angel flipped back up into the air. "I admit you're fucking fast, but speed alone doesn't win fights! Let's see how you dodge these Metalfish that can even eat through diamonds! They'll eat you alive!"

"You really have an impressive array of skills," said A in a tone that was still calm, taking up a new stance as the Metalfish swarmed towards him from all sides, making it impossible to dodge.

'A single one of these could give a typical E-Rank Regular trouble! She controls hundreds?'' The Traveler thought, marveling at the sight, subconsciously letting out a murmur, "Is the gulf between E and D Rank really this huge?"

"This team is top tier even within D-Rank, kid. You heard that dude earlier right? Buelsar Elliot over there is one of Baylord Yama's Mad Dogs, and that's his assigned Angel," Michael helpfully explained from beside him, keeping a large distance between himself and the fight. He was among the weaker ones in the group in terms of direct combat power and had no desire to get involved directly.

"But what gives you the idea that I rely only on speed?" A asked, before cracking the ground with a Shinsoo burst step and charging face first into the swarm.

His fist smashed a Metalfish and blew it away into several others behind it, before turning to another with a kick, and using the momentum to flip himself over to yet another one. Each strike carried enough force to dent the creatures' body and was accompanied by a wave of Shinsoo.

Like this, a whirlwind of powerful strikes dispersed the swarm.

"Alright you fucker, I'll—!" Angel shouted and her eyes glowed brighter, as if preparing to unleash another powerful technique.

"This is just a bad matchup for you, Angel," interrupted Buelsar, grabbing his weapon from his back and disappearing in a burst of speed.

He reappeared to the side of A, already swinging his drill-like needle with both hands, trailing with a powerful Shinsoo wind, smiling maniacally.

"…!"

A raised both arms to block just in time, but the collision blasted him away dozens of meters into a wall.

O O O

A/N: Thanks to everyone who commented and continues to support the story!