After the Storm, and Before the Storm (Premium)

by Sakon Kaidou

  “Anyway, I’m sure you heard what I said,” my teach said as she looked up at the suited men. “Can you give me the UBM... the Treasurebeast Orb that was stolen from the inner treasury?”

  The moment she said that, the air around the suited men changed.

  “Do that, and we can forget about the 360,000,000 you lost—”

  And we were both assaulted by a barrage of combat magic.

  ◇◇◇

  The story of certain treasures

  Huang He had a Special Superior Job called “Draconic Emperor.”

  It occasionally manifested in the imperial family, which, due to the ancient dragon blood flowing in their veins, were oftentimes called “gulong ren” — ancient dragon kin.

  A Draconic Emperor was a living deity closely tied to the very history of Huang He.

  While all of them were revered, the manifestation of the Draconic Emperor before the previous one was considered to have been the strongest of them all.

  His level had surpassed 2,000, and he’d defeated countless UBMs.

  This was due to a mix of his supreme stats, unique skills such as Draconic Inheritance and Gulong Ren Cells, the various techniques he crafted through harsh training, and the many special rewards — Mythical included — he gained from killing many UBMs all by himself.

  It was fair to call him a beast among beasts.

  His era was one in which Masters almost didn’t exist, so he was easily among the strongest the world had to offer. It was believed that if King of Kings and The Lynx hadn’t existed at the same time as him, he would’ve unified the entire continent under the flag of Huang He.

  As he fought off UBMs to protect Huang He, this Draconic Emperor realized that expanding his own strength any further would not help Huang He in any way, and that instead he needed to increase the number of people who wielded immense power.

  Thus, he began research into a technique that would allow him to seal away powerful monsters. Of course, they already had monster storage in the form of Jewels, but they could not store UBMs — those weren’t even tameable to begin with. However, the Draconic Emperor didn’t give up trying to wield their powers, and eventually, he created the so-called “Treasurebeast Orbs.”

  These weren’t items, but a type of barrier that materialized and acted as live storage for treasurebeasts — in other words, UBMs. The orbs made it possible for anyone to draw out and wield the powers of the UBMs inside. Since such powers were usually reserved to those who had contributed the most in the UBM’s defeat, this was simply astonishing.

  Being the only one capable of using this technique to trap UBMs, that Draconic Emperor had done it many times throughout his long life. He’d sealed away tigers, dragons, and monsters unlike any you’d ever see. The trapped beasts’ tiers reached as high as Mythical, and their number amounted to almost a hundred.

  When that Draconic Emperor was on his deathbed, he left the young, normal emperor with the words, “I shall die soon. But worry not, for I left you many means to make up for my absence. Use them to protect yourself, bring security to this land, and make the country prosper. This is goodbye, young one. Also... I have been feared my whole life. Everyone besides the King of Kings and The Lynx were afraid of me. You are no exception, but I’ve always found it endearing how you faced me despite your fears.”

  And so, the long-lived Draconic Emperor had breathed his last.

  Sadly, history hadn’t played out as he’d desired.

  The young emperor he’d entrusted the future to died to a disease only a few years later.

  That sparked a civil war between his brother and his unborn child... or rather, those who supported his unborn child’s rights to the imperial throne.

  Not only did it cause many deaths, but it ended with the child being born as the next Draconic Emperor, while being a person who had no right to inherit the political throne.

  It had been a time of meaningless bloodshed, and perhaps the most embarrassing stain in Huang He’s long history.

  But if there was one good thing to say about it, it was that neither side had used the Treasurebeast Orbs even once.

  That was because both sides had greatly respected the previous Draconic Emperor, not wanting to trample upon his will... and because they simply couldn’t even use them.

  The inner treasury, where the Treasurebeast Orbs were kept, could only be unlocked by the emperor or the Draconic Emperor.

  No one else could open it, and according to the late Draconic Emperor, if someone tried to enter without using the proper means, they would vanish from this world, alongside the treasury.

  There was no emperor or Draconic Emperor during the civil war, so no one could open it to use it in the conflict.

  Both the younger brother, who went on to become the emperor, as well as the child who became Draconic Emperor, thought that this was good, and greatly appreciated the late Dragon Emperor’s work on this front.

  The Treasurebeast Orbs went unused even after that.

  The only exception happened post-civil war, when the emperor gave a tiger orb to a group of people who’d decided to travel to the west.

  This was what the emperor said concerning the use of Treasurebeast Orbs:

  “These are powerful indeed. However, we must not wage war or quarrel merely because we have them. Instead, we should let them lie dormant until we truly need them.”

  Perhaps that wasn’t what the late Draconic Emperor had intended.

  However, the people of Huang He, weary from the civil war, readily accepted his words, and the nearly one hundred UBMs sealed within the Treasurebeast Orbs were left to lay dormant without even using their power.

  That ended once the treasury was opened a few centuries later, when the third prince of Huang He was heading out to the kingdom in the west... and someone used it as an opportunity to steal some of the orbs.

  ◇◇◇

  Hermine the City of Gambling, Mirage

  “Mr. Zhang, we’ve disposed of the rats,” an employee reported.

  “Well done.” In the gambling den’s manager’s office, the man in charge of the place, and all of Mirage’s operations in Caldina, sighed in relief and sat down on his chair.

  His name was Zhang, and there was a Treasurebeast Orb in his hand.

  He was looking at a crystal giving a live video feed of the gambling den’s hall, where he saw nothing but smoke caused by several dozen combat magic attacks.

  “Phew...”

  Needless to say, his relief was due to the death of the Masters he’d ordered to have killed... or at least one of them.

  As one who worked here in Caldina, Zhang obviously knew about AR-I-CA.

  She’d come here to take the orb in his hand.

  She was a Superior operating as part of the strongest clan, Sefirot.

  Her nickname was “Blue Sky Songstress,” and she was one of the strongest people in the country. However, that was only when she was riding her Magingear.

  That was why he’d given out the order for her death while she was still bare.

  In a way, Zhang was lucky. If she’d been replaced by Carl Lourlou the Multifariously Invincible, this attack wouldn’t have done anything to him. He was the ultimate endurance fighter, known for, among other things, his fight against a UBM in boiling magma, and also the destruction of a spellcaster association that’d tried to defeat him with thousands of combat spells at once.

  Surprise attacks wouldn’t have scratched him, and they’d have been defeated before the battle even began. However, if the man had demanded the orb, they would’ve still had to fight despite the overwhelming odds.

  That was just how important the orb was to them.

  They’d received it from Mirage’s headquarters in Huang He about a week ago. All Zhang knew was that it was a bargaining chip in negotiations with a certain clan present here in Caldina. Since Zhang was in charge of Mirage’s operations here, he was in charge of this task.

  Once the appointed time came, he would go to
a designated spot, present the password, and complete the negotiation. It seemed like a basic trade, but the object in question was extraordinary.

  The orb was a national treasure that everyone from Huang He had heard about in stories from their childhood days. He also knew that this would be less of a trade, and more of a creation of a bond with a certain organization. Zhang had been surprised by that and asked the one who’d presented it, “What kind of bond could be worth something like this?”

  He hadn’t gotten the answer from him, so Zhang had used comms magic to contact Mirage’s main branch. They’d responded with nothing but the name of the organization, but that was more than enough.

  Zhang understood the gravity of this exchange, and that his head was on the line here, along with those of every Mirage member here in Caldina. Thus, even if the one who’d caught wind of it and come here for it was a Superior, he had no choice but to shoot.

  “This orb... that clan... Are the main branch planning a coup d’etat?” Zhang murmured.

  He knew what they wanted to do, but he couldn’t understand what they were thinking. Even so, he knew he would all be over if he went against the order.

  He would be crushed by either the main branch, or that organization. Regardless, his future was so bleak that making an enemy out of the Blue Sky Songstress seemed like the better idea.

  “She’ll come back in three days, but the exchange will be done in two,” he muttered.

  Unlike tians, Masters were immortal. Zhang knew full well that he had only bought himself three days worth of time. However, that was all he wanted.

  That was enough for him and his group to go through the exchange and leave Hermine.

  Having made an enemy out of a Caldinian Superior, he had no choice but to abandon this business. That was why he could act without caring about its reputation among the customers or any damage dealt.

  Otherwise, he would’ve never used explosive magic indoors. Zhang looked inside the crystal again — at the scene where a Superior had just died.

  “...Isn’t this smoke lasting a bit too long?”

  The smoke rising from the spot where the two Masters had stood showed no sign of going away.

  Is it burning that hard? Zhang wondered, and a chill went down his spine. Zhang was a battle-focused Mirage operative that’d lived through many fights, and the chill was his experience speaking to him.

  “Ventilation magic. Use vent magic to spread the smoke away!” he shouted.

  “But if it’s a fire, that might make the flames stronger...”

  “Doesn’t matter! Do it!”

  The member followed Zhang’s order and used a vent magic, Fu, to disperse the smoke.

  It exposed a cylindrical object that was continuously releasing smoke. Those with Identification saw that it had the name “Smoke Discharger.”

  But there was something that attracted even more attention.

  “Is that... scrap metal?”

  At the ground zero of the combat magic attack, there was a large pile of scrap metal... or maybe remains.

  The wall was covered in various kinds of mechanical junk, including weapons and armor. They had no idea that before the attack had hit, a certain someone had released the scrap from her inventory into the magic’s trajectory.

  Needless to say, the person who’d done it was...

  “Ohh, you noticed?” a voice rang out from behind the wall. “Too late, though. It’s showtime!”

  The wall of scrap suddenly collapsed.

  As though its role was over, it fell as if calculated for performance value, and revealed a blue, human-shaped machine.

  It was a humanoid Magingear, but those who only knew the Marshall II wouldn’t believe that. This unit was impossibly slender. It almost felt like it was but a chassis without its armor. The design made it look like a slightly bigger, more beautiful version of the power armor Magingears that had once been the norm. The only thing that made it clear that it was bigger than it first appeared was the device equipped on its back.

  The unit’s name was MGFX-001 Blue Opera. It was the first unit of the MGFX series. That was the title for custom units that Franklin, the father of all mech-type Magingears, created without paying any heed to the cost.

  This particular unit was all blue in color, and so slender and streamlined that it didn’t even feel like a Magingear.

  “Sing... Opera!” Blue Opera absorbed the pilot’s MP and activated its engine.

  An air-shaking song started to stream through the air. It was merely the sound of the machinery inside Blue Opera, but it was comparable to the voices of proficient soprano singers in its elegant beauty.

  The melody wasn’t made by a human voice, but the beauty made it more than worthy of the title “songstress.” The audience here wasn’t moved, however, for they realized that this songstress might be the siren bringing them their doom.

  “I’m ready, too, teach,” a new voice rang out as someone behind the blue songstress stood up.

  This Magingear was larger than the songstress, and a whole lot bulkier, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

  It was a heavy unit with layers upon layers of armor. It was as though they were petals.

  While the former was a songstress, this was a blooming flower.

  Its name was MGFX-002 White Rose. It was the second MGFX unit, and Franklin’s birthday-farewell gift to his little sister. All white in color, it was no doubt the most solid Magingear of all.

  “You hopped in yours too, huh?” AR-I-CA asked.

  “Yes,” Hugo nodded. “But next time, please inform me that we are going to fight before we enter the establishment.”

  “You’ve gotta learn to sense that by yourself. It’s part of your training!”

  “Do you think that anything can count as training?”

  “N-Nooooo...”

  “You’re stuttering.”

  The pilots of the blue and white units were chatting in the same way they had around the table before it was blown up. The Mirage members facing them couldn’t feel so carefree, however.

  Someone among them gulped.

  These machines were enemies they had to defeat, and it seemed like there was no better time to strike than now, while they were chatting.

  However, they felt like everything would end the moment they attacked.

  All of them thought that this would be where they died.

  ◇◇◇

  High Pilot, Hugo Lesseps

  “Eh? You actually keep your Magingear in a Garage?” my teach had said three hours before we’d entered the gambling den. “Well, they’re good for their automatic light maintenance and gun loading, but if you need to use it in an emergency, you should keep it in an inventory with Instant Release on it. There’s no point in using Garages when your mech’s a hundred percent battle-ready.”

  Then she’d given me a spare inventory, which I’d moved my Rose into.

  That should’ve been enough for me to realize that I would be involved in some battle soon.

  At least this experience had made me understand just how useful Instant Release inventories were for spontaneous battles.

  It was the first time I’d heard of such a technique, but that was probably because we ToW pilots were mostly focused on tests and didn’t use Magingears this way.

  This had to be something my teach had thought of in her battles after leaving Dryfe.

  “Is it just me, or did that scrap wall almost break?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. It was right in the trajectory, and it... was tough enough.”

  “Why the pause and why the ‘was’?”

  “Hmm... Well, this is all scrap from the machine I broke. Maybe it wouldn’t have lasted if I’d used just a little bit less...”

  I said nothing and just thought, So she’s basically saying that if the scrap had been only a little more weathered, we wouldn’t have made it.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. I can just dodge it,” she said.

  “But... then I
would be dead, right?”

  “...That’s part of traini—”

  “Stop that.”

  As we continued the nonsensical analysis of the situation, I noticed something at the edge of my monitor.

  It was one of the Huang Heian mafia members. He was preparing to fire more combat magic at Blue Opera.

  The unit was lightly-armored, so he probably thought that it could be disabled with a well-aimed surprise attack. He launched his spell before I could say anything...

  “And just so you know, apparently, Embryos grow-up more powerful if you die a couple times.”

  ...while my teach just continued her speech.

  His spell headed straight for her back, but my teach avoided it by simply tilting her unit. It didn’t even affect the flow of conversation.

  “Eh?” the mafia member said.

  He probably didn’t understand what had just happened. It was as if my teach had eyes on her back... or some other mysterious sense.

  She was capable of that.

  I was pretty sure that no one could land a surprise attack on her. Before her Superior Embryo, traps, sneak attacks, gambling cheats... all dangers were rendered powerless.

  “Teach...” I began.

  “Yeah. I guess we should start the battle. We don’t want the one with the orb to escape.”

  As she spoke, she materialized two rifles in midair — probably using Instant Release — then grabbed them with her Blue Opera.

  “...! Fire!” a mafia member shouted.

  They all began attacking us all at once.

  A rain of combat magic fell on both Opera and Rose, but it didn’t have the effect the casters were intending.

  My teach’s Opera repeated the previous feat and dodged every single one of the spells.

  Her Magingear was on the smaller side, but still much larger than a human, and yet it didn’t even get scratched.

  My Rose, on the other hand, couldn’t dodge at all, so every single attack heading my way landed.

  Still, the petal-like layers of armor created a white light that blocked off all combat magic.

  It seemed like we were demonstrating the difference and viability of AGI and END-focused builds.

  If not that, then we were showing them the power of the most expensive and strongest Magingears built by Dryfe’s largest clan.