-Robert Fayn-

It hasn’t even been a week since the Soldiers of Clay popped up and assaulted System Assistant’s Caketopia: six days in a row my Enigma has been dealing with sporadic attacks from Glory Daze, the SteelStar Supremacists, and now these golem assholes. I swear this is worse than when I had to deal with the Harbingers of the Black Skies, at least they knew moderation and strategy. The only solace I could take in was the fact that all the attacks going since Historie Pastoria Sweets got an Interconnection into Mercury-Gardenia were sporadic: they are completely unorganized and none of the sweet tooths had been severely injured or killed so far.

Still having these attacks ramping up for almost a month and a half now was a pain, and with the attack on the Old Fashioned that killed Neo Draceld Z and left her in some weird off-brand limbo made by our mandalas and the attack on System Assistant’s Caketopia that apparently in retaliation for the conquest being made by Sous, an enlightened entity and contracted existence: shit got personal. I hate it when things get personal. And now I have to talk to my doppelgänger and figure out why the hell his Enigma is attracting all these anti-Vraglixian assholes, I mentally swore to myself as read through the reports that Sous was feeding me via translucent screens: it wasn’t just reports from my Enigma but also Lucilla’s and Cheesecake Emporos-Museum. 

“Is this all of it?” I asked Sous, taking note of just how many reports there were and also how haphazard the set up of the reports were: there was no consistency at all other than first hand and second hand reports of seeing people get attacked, mostly entities and the humanoid monsters. 

“We don’t have any Aux cores for surveillance and complying records. This is the best I can do at this point in time. We should just be glad that the sweet tooths of Cheesecake Emporos-Museum and the fruit tenders of Treant Orchards are adding to the pot,” explained Sous, correctly making use of his crystalline mote form he could remotely control. I kept telling him he needed to get out more now that he had an actual body, but no, he just stayed locked up in his penthouse and subsisted off the Enigma’s dungeon-mana reserves. Didn’t he remember when Daphne told me it was a bad idea to do that in the long run?

“And I’m guessing those other sweet tooths told us about my doppelgänger’s relationship with the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion I keep hearing about? And why all these assholes are gunning for us now?”

“Yes, although it actually isn’t Robby who directly has a relationship with the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion but rather the stargranted-spellman and the enlightened spirit, the former actually being from Vraglix.”

“You got to be kidding me.”

“I am not. Furthermore, due to the stance on ascending to magi-sentience that your alt-rhi’s Enigma stands by, the anti-Vraglixian groups try to undermine the blackzone whenever possible. And since Robby is your alt-rhi, they correctly assume you have similar beliefs and are the easier target for Vraglix bashing.”

“Seriously? How the hell are we the easier target?”

“Size and allies. We only possess fifteen areas and functioning alliances with Ignae Automata, Glyiria, and now also Mercury-Hyacinth-Johari. Cheesecake Emporos-Museum on the other hand boasts twenty-eight areas currently and is the sub-blackzone of three different Grands and three different powerful blackzones, Ignae Automata being one of the latter three. Not to mention in terms of personnel outside of monsters, entities, and the likes along they have over three-hundred sweet tooths compared to our seventy-six.” Twenty-eight areas? We’ve barely had our blackzones for more than a year now and he has that many? How many fucking handouts did he get for turning his place into a sub-blackzone for so many others? I thought to myself in shock, feeling jealous that he had so many areas to use for protection but remembered how royally screwed he was on independence and manalogical potential: something that Mita wouldn’t stop talking about lately. Clueing in what I was feeling, Sous continued to talk, “We should leave those thoughts for meeting with Robby and his companions, Teodora and Dux. Mita is already with them and at this rate Louella will arrive before us.”

“Fine, fine, fine. I still think its weird we’re meeting in the ruins,” I replied with a sigh. I knew now that simulated worlds and overlapping layers of reality were common in the Back Continents, but it was weird to know that the non-simulated side of things of Mercury-Gardenia were all just grimdark wastelands with technic towers. Even weirder to think there are some people that made a living by living in the non-simulated side of things. Lifers and awakens huh… I mused, trying my hardest to remember the information that Tabitha and Margaret told me about Mercury-Gardenia.

Making my way to Sweets Futurism, I rode the aerial tramway to the portal to the non-simulated side of things cause I didn’t feel like trying to find my way out of whatever tower my real body was shunted to. Yeah this is a lot simpler to do, I noted to myself as my real body got shunted back to me as my simulated body fell away cause I didn’t know how to keep it going.

Luckily I didn’t have to worry about oddly high tiered monsters because Johari or whoever he had managing our Interconnection had already set up some Aux cores to repel them and made some flying barely invisible monsters that hunted down the rest. Of course that didn’t help with all the sand and grit flying about cause there was like no greenery. Or the fact the aerial tramways set up here were ricketer than my Enigma’s trains in the middle of a fight with the gingerbread commuters. This thing better not snap on me, I moaned as I entered Johari’s Trapdoor.

Arriving at the meeting place, a small modernism village built out of the ruins of one of the towers that held people’s real bodies while they experienced the other layer of reality, I noticed that Louella had already managed to get here before me. Mita was already talking with my alt-rhi of a doppelgänger who had already set up his vending machine, something that was apparently a part of him because of a racial feature. Is there a facsimile attached to that mandala or is just a straight up conjuration that is connected to him? I pondered as I neared the group and got a better look at the two other blackzone managers present: the one to the left of the other me was obviously the enlightened spirit of the two because they were levitating and had a sort of angel porcelain doll-like appearance that reminded me of the Veiled Countries with how mist and magical miasma swirled around them and their floating disk halos while the one on the right was likely the one from Vraglix cause she had four thin arms and a third eye on under her left one.

“I did not expect Teodora to be so… alien. What an interesting ingredient of an underling blackzone manager,” commented Sous in a low voice as the alien waved one of her arms to greet us. 

“And an apex, not to mention spellman and stargranted,” I replied back in a whisper, noticing the alien had a scar on her clavicle that looked just like the one on my alt-rhi’s face. Must be from the bad end or whatever… thank god I didn’t fuck up on saving Tala.

“Looks like the other me finally showed up,” commented Robby with a half frown.

“Yeah, well I’m on time,” I shot back with a casual shrug.

“And also the last person to arrive, except for Johari.”

“But that’s expected knowing him.”

“Pretty much.”

“So… Robby… since we are all here, you think we can just all cut to the chase and you guys can explain what the hell is going on with all this Vraglix bullshit?”

“Straight to the point, huh. Yeah those anti-Vraglixian groups are a pain in the ass,” pointed out my alt-rhi with a sigh before continuing, “Long story short, we’re members of the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion. Well Teodora, Dux, and my system assistant, Chef, are.”

“Wait… you have a magi-sentient system assistant also?” I asked, noticing the tone in Robby’s face: he was dealing with an overbearing system assistant turn recluse magi-sentient also.

“Yeah, Chef has been a magi-sentient for a third of a year now. Almost as long as I have,” answered the levitating enlightened angel as she shifted her slit-like eyes back between him and my other self.

“So you have allied yourself with the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion because they have helped two of you become a magi-sentient and the third of you hails from its birthplace?” half-asked half-noted Louella, listening intently while she pursued the selection of soda-potions in my doppelgänger’s vending machine.

“And we are helping them host another ascension event with the promise that one of Robby’s spirits and my allies, Norwell, is ascended to partial-neo-sentient, you know the type that gets a bunch of extra system slots instead of mandalas. The date for that is July 18th and that is when we are expecting all of them to make their move.”

“All of them? As in all three? Glory Daze? SteelStar Supremacists? And the Soldiers of Clay?” questioned Mita with a slight gulp, proving that he has been immersed in reading the reports about all the attacks recently also.

“So, we’re just supposed to accept the fact? Is there no way to get them to, I don’t know, not attack us?” I followed up, trying to gauge just how screwed we were. Seriously, what is my luck to have a doppelgänger that drags me into something like this? 

“Well you could true death your system assistant and your own Neo Draceld, you have a Draceld right? Or are they one of the other variations?” facetiously suggested Teodora, grinning smugly as how pissed off I got at that suggestion. I mean seriously?! We are already dealing with Neo Draceld Z recuperating from being cursed and killed. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was able to exploit the grace period of having mandala inscriptions being fully inscribed she would have been dealing with three cursed mandalas, one of which having a type of hex of sentience on it, instead of two lesser cursed ones. And god knows when she’ll get used to those mandalas or when she’ll be able to pull something like that off again.

“Yeah, fuck no.”

“Exactly, we feel the same way about Chef and Neom, Neo Draceld M. We aren’t going to bow to some Vraglix bashers and magi-elitists.”

“So we’re just going to have to deal with those assholes then?”

“Pretty much, which is why we’re trying to help out and get Johari roped into this,” answered the other me with a grimace. “It’s the least that that gossiping golden boy can do with how much those groups use his Interconnection to share information between each other.”

“Wait hold up, you’re telling me that Johari is siding with them?” Totally a different vibe than I got when I talked to him. 

“Oh I don’t side with them, and I don’t like them,” suddenly answered Johari, on cue and completely out of the blue. Striding up to the six of us in his simulated body, the blackzone manager continued, “I’m mostly neutral on the matter, it’s the best stance I can take as a scion and with my opinion on ascension to magi-sentience. And for the reason why I let those people swap messages with my Trapdoor, it’s better than the alternative of having them find another way that I can’t track.”

“So ammunition for gossip?”

“Precisely, the average ratio of contracted sapient spirits and familiars who want to become magi-sentient on their own compared to ones who don’t is one in five hundred. The success rate is also one in five hundred on average, baring uniquely positioned organizations like the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion of course. Most of them are lucky to even achieve partial-magi-sentience. So by letting both the rebellion and its detractors make use of my Trapdoor, I can indirectly aid the cause and collect valuable interesting stories in the process.”

“Isn’t that just like voyeurism? But with lives on the line instead of nudes?” pointed Mita awkwardly as he tried to process all the information.

“Well, if you put anything that bluntly then of course it is going to sound bad,” dismissively replied Johari as he went to open up a personal subdimension to pull out thick vials with some sort of complex spiral-shaped magic inside of it. I could probably feel the system-altered mana radiating off them even though the glass: there has to be some really high tier Technologia being used in that, or at least Auxiliary or Crafts, but it was too compact for me to tell. “I rather listen to stories where people are risen up, not brought down.”

“Which is why he has procured power grinding items to help prepare your Enigma and its sweet tooths for when the anti-Vraglixians attack,” noted Dux as she conjured a table of mist and magical miasma for Johari to lay the vials out on.

“Coded system slot’s connections, a hundred for Sins of the SteelStar’s Game System and a hundred for Mercury-Gardenia’s Hybrid System of Flowers. You take one of these and it will make one of your free system slots devote its connection to empowering a matching pre-existing one, added bonus the empowerment always gives something good and you have about a month of elevated experience gain to help rank and level up. You can only safely take two given how much time you guys have. And don’t worry, you can keep the spares for later.”

“So, what… we take these and power level until the 18th?” I asked as I tapped one of the vials that I’m pretty sure was attuned to the Game System.

“Precisely.” Well that solves the problem of being absolutely outclassed when it comes to using the systems… Oh man the Glyirian sweet tooths are going to love it, I thought to myself, also wanting the excuse to power level a bit: not have to worry about all this shit for a few weeks and enjoying using a proxy body to greater game. And when all is said and done, we should be able to handle those assholes on their own turf: Glory Daze in Mercury-Gardenia, the SteelStar Supremacists in Starport Cyber, and the Soldiers of Clay in Witch Synthia. Yeah we should be able to handle them… hopefully be able to handle then…