karami92

Author's Corner: Thank you to Darby Small for joining the Patreon!

Naturally, five hundred simultaneous attacks weren’t possible, even if Tsubaki sent out that many avatars of herself. After all, each minister would have a different level of defense. Some might be in public, in which case the avatar would need to wait until they were in a secluded location. Some might be in well-defended bunkers, requiring her to navigate their defenses. Many, naturally, would be easy to target, but five hundred simultaneous kills were unreasonable to expect.

Thus, those that completed their tasks ahead of the others began to fill in the gaps, while those that were forced to lag behind waited patiently for their moment to strike. In situations like this, it was far better to prioritize discretion over speed.

Still, it took less than a week for Tsubaki to finish after dividing her workload. By the time that she had gotten through the ministers, the president, and the few research personnel that had been infected, Thelsa had only just finished preparing for the second diplomatic mission. The group this time was much the same as before, but it was decided to leave Lifre out of the mission.

In the first mission, her presence was required due to being the only one that knew about the situation on this floor, but now that information had been largely shared with the others. When it came to fighting and adventure, Lifre was a great ally to have on one’s side. However… when it came time to sit at a table and talk, Lifre was prone to running up the walls out of boredom.

Because of this, Lifre was given free reign to roam the city as long as she maintained a disguise. With this, the only members of the party were Jack and Thelsa’s group.

Fortunately, their return to the sixty-third floor was not immediately met with the same level of detainment that they faced the first time. Instead, the officers that they had encountered before recognized them, and they were treated courteously. Sadly, they were not able to quickly meet with any government officials for some time.

Inwardly, Petra worried whether this was a sign that Tsubaki had failed in her mission, and that the targets were on high alert. Alternatively, they could be recovering from whatever chaos she left behind, and they would only be able to meet with these officials after that chaos was cleared. 

While they were busy waiting for their meetings, Lifre was off on her own little adventure. She had been told that she could have fun, and that they wouldn’t interfere with her plans, so long as she maintained her disguise in the city. Naturally, this led her to want to explore.

What Petra hadn’t expected was that the target of Lifre’s exploration wasn’t the city, but rather the second gate of the sixty-third floor. With the city spanning the entire layer, the other gate was in a location known by many citizens. Having received this information previously, Lifre traveled to the appropriate district, splitting off a clone to investigate the next floor as per the standard protocols.

What her clone reported back did not particularly surprise Lifre. Unlike the sixty-third floor, the sixty-fourth did not have any form of advanced civilization. There were signs of a tribal society near the gate, but all that was left of it was burning ruins. For the brief moments that the clone was present in that layer, it could feel that it was being watched.

Now, normally this news would deter a would-be explorer, as it indicated the presence of a powerful and hostile force, one that had the intelligence to stalk its prey. Such people were… not Lifre. As soon as Lifre realized that this was the layer where James had originated, and that there did not seem to be any memetic effects that she needed to worry about, she all but dove through the gate.

On the other side, Lifre came to a well-lit wasteland, smoke rising up from various directions. Lifre could only assume that this smoke came from the ruins that her avatar had mentioned, and thus began to immediately run towards it.

She could already feel the presence watching her, and grinned happily. The only reason that she noticed this sensation was because of her World Sight, as the energy used for detection was otherwise unnoticeable.

“Does that make these guys natural Saint Bodies?” Lifre asked aloud, though she was obviously not expecting an answer. Even if the presence watching her was inclined to answer, it had no way of understanding her speech.

It took her roughly half an hour of running to reach the ruins that her clone had spotted from the portal. These ruins were crudely constructed stone structures standing dozens of meters tall. Or, at least, the ones that were still standing were. Many of the structures were broken, the entire area surrounded by craters.

Lifre swept her World Sight over the area, feeling the remnant energy in the air. “This was… within the last twenty-four hours, right? The natural energy fluctuations haven’t completely subsided.”

Lifre crossed her arms, thinking about her situation. From what she had experienced, these creatures were masters of manipulating natural energy, and even imbuing it with spiritual strength.

“I could call the munchkin, but she probably wouldn’t want to run the risk of fighting the people from this floor. Wasn’t she really good friends with James? I wonder if I can just call him here?” She asked aloud, before her eyes suddenly widened.

Oh, Dale! Dale! Dale, answer the call!

There was a faint groan in response to her call. What is it? I was just preparing for the release of Ascension.

Huh? Oh, right! That was today? Wait, no, I’ll try it later. Anyways, I’m on the sixty-fourth floor right now!

The Keeper paused for a long moment before replying to Lifre’s comment. You don’t mean the sixty-third, do you?

Nope! I went ahead to check out the next place while the others were busy having their meetings. Didn’t you say that James would officially be one of your people once someone made it here?!

That’s right. The Keeper answered, though he still seemed shocked by her sudden revelation. You remember that he said that his race was incredibly combative, right?

Oh, definitely! One of them is actually preparing to launch a giant fire wave at me now. I should probably go deal with that! As Lifre said that, she could feel an intense wave of heat rapidly approaching from behind herself.

Her foot stomped at the ground, causing a large wall of stone to erupt behind her and intercept the blast. Despite this, she could see the stone turning red and liquifying. At the very least, it gave her time to get out of the way. “That wasn’t a very nice greeting, mister!” She shouted, facing a translucent entity that hovered in the air more than three kilometers away.

The entity simply watched her for a long moment, before raising his hands to the sky. Dark clouds began to swirl over Lifre’s head, and she felt static rising in the air. “Now you want to fight me with lightning…” Despite the figure’s hostility, she could still feel the mysterious presence from before that was watching her, causing her to groan in frustration.

“Fine, it’s time for a tactical slime!” She shouted, clapping her hands together. She knew the fighting style of these creatures since long ago, so it wasn’t difficult for her to adjust. As for this lightning bolt… well, she was quite the proficient druid herself, so she was able to redirect it with ease.

When I heard Lifre’s message, I couldn’t help but want to confirm it. Thankfully, I was already in the Admin Room to prepare for the release of Ashley’s new game, so it wasn’t hard for me to find James with the map. As I did so, I saw new options that hadn’t appeared before, including the Smite button. Thanks to this, I was able to truly confirm that James was now one of my people.

More importantly, it should be possible to give him access to the Heavenly Gate, like Tsubaki and the others. I’m sure that Chelsea would appreciate that, even if James very rarely came to visit.

Rather than assigning this to him right away, I made a mental note to approach him and ask him for his opinion on it. If it wasn’t something that he felt that he’d want, there was no point in spending the ten thousand points to use it on him. If he did want it, however, I would be more than happy to oblige.

“And that is why you don’t mess with the tactical slime!” Lifre shouted, standing high in the sky above the translucent figure, a spear of light radiating in her hands. The figure that had attacked her before now lay wounded on the ground, its body pale.

If the creature looked as if it was going to attack again, Lifre planned to deliver the finishing blow. However, before she could do so, a much larger figure appeared near the first, standing between it and Lifre. Finally, Lifre could sense that this figure was the one that had been watching her since her arrival.

The figure stared at Lifre, and she began to wonder if it was trying to communicate somehow. Part of her was thinking if she should take the figure’s life story to decipher its language, but soon realized that doing so would alert the entity and send it into battle mode.

I can probably take him… but is there a need to fight? She asked herself reluctantly. If there was not a need for confrontation, she certainly didn’t want to be the cause of it.

After a few moments, the tall figure gave off a general feeling of annoyance, but disappeared, taking the smaller one with it. Lifre blinked, staring at the sight of her previously fallen foe. “Wait… was that just its dad!?” She shouted out, feeling that she had been scolded for playing rough in the playground.

“To be fair, it could have also been the mom. I don’t know their gender characteristics.” She muttered, looking around. The buildings in the previous ruins looked like they were more of a fit for the smaller of the two figures, so Lifre thought that this truly might have been little more than a playground for them to ‘play around’ in, and that these fights were just part of their games.

“Well, on the bright side, it didn’t immediately attack me. Maybe it thinks I’m just a kid, because of my size?” She thought, her brow twitching. Although she managed to get out of the situation without conflict, the idea that she had been mistaken for a child irked her. “Okay, so I’m using the body of a child. But still! It’s a completely different race, and I thought that they’d judge more based on strength than appearance!”

Unfortunately for Lifre, there was nobody to answer her speculations or complaints. The only thing that she could do was contemplate whether she wanted to change her appearance. Despite her looks, it had been a long time since anyone truly saw her as a kid.

“No, no, I can’t do that.” She shook her head quickly to dismiss those thoughts. “This is my brand! It’s my image! I won’t let them taint that! I’m going to track that old man down, and I’m going to knock some sense into him!”