Ugh. Dick here. I never got hangovers—’til now.

I’m not sure how, but, Marge’s assistant, Sophia’s chewing out Marge, Sam, Oreo, and Embro. The four of them are sitting around the Ops Room being quite a bit depressed, while Sophia’s hovering over their shoulders.

“Irresponsible! All of you!”

The other dragon knight-rider pairs start tip-toeing out of the room, but—

“You six! You are not exempt!”

By the way, apparently I’m exempted coz I kept taking lightning strikes. Marge and Embro say I was basically drunk, but I think it’s way fuckin’ worse than getting hammered.

I mean, I’m still feeling it like damn.

“Why! I am only a laboratory assistant! How did I become a vice captain! All of you leaders abandoned all leadership—your one responsibility! Did you know how confused everyone was!”

Oh wow, that sounds pretty bad. Come to think of it, Sam and Oreo spaced out during the first part of the attack, didn’t they? I wonder what happened with that.

{Hey, Sam—}

“Señor Grey! Not now!”

{H-heey, this is important, though!}

Sophia huffed. “Go on.”

{R-right. Sam? You and Oreo spaced out the moment you saw the fort. What happened there?}

Sam and Oreo looked to each other for a moment. I swear, there was a glint of hesitation there.

“We …” Sam started. “We heard a voice. A compulsion.”

What?

“It told us to destroy the fortress. We were already in the midst of combat when I realized that we weren’t taking rational actions.”

“Mind magic,” Embro remarks. Everyone else looks to him, so he explains. “I once encountered demons, deep inside the infested territory across the sea, who had the ability to cast compulsions. They may paralyze you, or cause you to act unusually.”

W-wow. Scary.

“How fearsome,” Sam says. “Rather than that, why was I affected, and you were not? You were also on-deck when the fortress appeared—notwithstanding why you were somewhere you were not supposed to be.”

Embro scratches his head. “I suppose it is the mental attack resistance I had developed in my time as hero? Perhaps the mental attack specifically targeted leaders?”

{Huhh, that last one might be it. Ned got affected by it, right? At least, the rest of the Liberty Dragons seemed way too gung-ho to be affected.}

By the way, apparently Ned somehow took out one of our engines with a dragon laser attack, hence why apparently I started tilting at 45 degrees. The guy propped me up, though, so I guess it’s even.

“For these … ‘super-mimics,’ I suppose we can call them, to be capable of casting mind magics on a grand scale, that can even affect Liberty Dragons—what chance do we stand?”

The implications left everyone in the room quiet.

{We were lucky.}

They just nodded. If we didn’t have a hundred Liberty Dragons on our side, we’d be shot down within a few seconds. That fort had way too much firepower.

… Marge’s mumbling something.

{Marge?}

“Huh?” The girl looks up from cupping her chin. “N-no, uhh, I was just thinking—it looked kinda like a labyrinth just flew up out of the ground.”

Sam jumps up. “You can’t mean?!”

Wow, that’s the most flustered reaction I’ve seen out of her.

Marge pulls out a tube out of nowhere and unrolls a bunch of maps from it, then starts explaining.

"Everyone knows that most labyrinths have the same structure: a wide first floor, then as you go to deeper floors, it gets narrower and narrower. Sometimes, floors can get slightly wider, but the general trend is that they get smaller.

“And another thing. From what bestie here told me about the interior of Moonscar, and my own observations about Grey, it ain’t a stretch to say that labyrinths used to be ships at some point. They might have weirdly-sized corridors, sure, but maybe they weren’t crewed by humans? I mean, Moonscar’s corridors would fit an elf pretty well, I guess?”

{Uhh, noob here, but is a labyrinth something that’s supposed to be buried?}

“Yep!” Marge replies.

“Be that as it may,” Sam interrupts, “we’ve sustained far too many casualties and damage to Sir Grey himself. Hence, for the moment, we are proceeding southwards and avoiding the mountains. Marge, how are repairs?”

“Pretty bad~”

“Please qualify.”

“I already fixed up the magic cannons—I mean, they’re literally made of magic, so…”

“Please don’t digress.”

“Right! Power reactor is fine, but 3 out of 8 engines are too damaged for aerial repairs, and the hull’s too shot with holes! We don’t have the steel to fill ’em in. We’ll need a dry dock, too.”

“Major Billison, casualty report?”

Who the heck’s Billison—

“Ma’am.”

Ah, the wyvern riders’ commander. The guy that tips his hat and keeps it indoors.

“… Outta 211 wyverns, we got 38 dead and 71 wounded. Outta 287 riders, 52 dead and 57 wounded. Stablehands also got 11 dead, 39 wounded.”

They got fuckin’ halved, the fuck.

This shitty casualty rate keeps happening. I’m really unsettled about this.

Sam just nods. “The closest industrial city is Las Vegas. As far as I am aware, they have stayed largely neutral to the Civil War, so we will have to simultaneously offer proper remuneration and threaten them with military force in our back hand as a diplomatic courtesy. We should be able to replenish supplies, materials, and troops there. They don’t have a dry dock, however, so, Marge—‘Got it!’—Thank you.”

{Did I hear that right? We’re gonna threaten them but pay ’em anyway?}

Sam smirks. That’s new. “We are in secretly friendly terms with its lord, but if they freely assist us, other factions will see it as them aligning with us. If it appeared that we were forcing them, on the other hand—I’m sure Lord Cashhouse will take no offense. As long as we pay fairly, of course.”

Major Billison raises his hand. Sam nods. “Ain’t there a labyrinth in Vegas? Ain’t it gonna—dunno—shoot outta the ground and fuck things up?”

Sam shakes her head. “The Las Vegas labyrinth is a true derelict. It has no demons spawning within, and there is no trace of neither magic nor power in its halls.”

A~lright! Guess we’re heading to Vegas!