“Finally, you’re back. It was getting boring,” she said happily.
“And it’s not going to get any better.”
CHAPTER 6 Payback
Bulk PoV
We were looking at the confused Gaia who tilted her head while wondering about what he said. After a bit she simply shrugged then looked us over.
“Well I’m sure you all want new parts right. What kind?” she asked.
“For now, we need cast iron. From there we will train in some monster dungeon until we reach level 30 before returning to steel,” Techno replied.
“Seems good, anything else?” she asked which almost made me facepalm by how easily she fell into that pit.
“Of course. We want every schematic that involves any kind of tech I developed. Snipers, protectors, knights, bombs, grenade launchers and all the weapons that originated from those scans you got off us without asking before we left.” He sent the message with a straight face.
Gaia’s jaw dropped and was only being held on by its hinges. To make it worse, he didn’t stop.
“Not only that, we want a small medium sized well armored ship built. The junker we had won’t do for us within this improved world we are returning to. It can be as small as a caravel. We saw that was the smallest ship you all have, so make us one. Oh and set up a workshop for me, I will be busy with some new stuff I prepared. I want those weapons sent to the workshop as well. Now then, chop-chop.” He finished off so splendidly that no one could respond.
The guard knights that were in the room all received the messages that Techno sent out. When he talks he always sends it out to everyone near him, just like his voice would have reached those in the room.
He turned around and left calling Nova and I to follow. No one even tried to stop us as we walked through the building and left. We did draw attention from the players since we were coming out of the ruler’s building. Since we were still rusty, they knew we were players and wondered about our connection.
“That was...harsh,” I said.
Techno laughed. “Not harsh enough I think. But since I don’t have anything else to rip out of her claws at the moment, I won’t push.”
“At the moment. Are you planning on continuing this?” I asked.
He looked back at me with a grin. I frowned thinking how creepy it looked. I was used to Techno being the expressionless guy so to see him like this was a bit… different. Well anyway it was a good laugh now that I think about it. When I size up what Gaia did to Techno, I would say he paid her back at least 30 times over.
Doing stupid stuff like this is what keeps me following Techno.
We walked around the town and looked through all the new shops. Unlike before, there were many more proper forges separated in many smithies. In them were dwarves working and with the parts being made, the clockwork and gnomes inside a separate workshop, were building weapons and gear.
Techno examined the gear on the dwarves since it had been greatly improved. I got in on the scans and he showed me the old ones he still had stored. The specs couldn’t even be compared to the old stuff.
I instantly saw that Techno was already in the process of building new bodies. I then thought of the weapons he was having Gaia get him. If a lot of weapons were made I think we will be stuck here for quite a while before he is satisfied with tinkering. He did ask for the schematics so it could be faster.
After a while Rust came and found us. He had a worried expression and was puffing out lots of steam.
It didn’t go unnoticed by Techno who told Nova to be careful.
We were led into the south gate’s walls and up into the dock area.
We walked past a number of ships until we reached a spot where several caravel like ships were flying. They were like the other ships, with new models and were totally new.
“Gaia says to choose, she doesn’t want to see you for a while since she is extremely pissed to the point of wanting to punch several holes through you.” Rust said.
“Hehehe.”
Rust simply shook his head and got out of Techno’s way as he walked about from one ship to the next. I was wondering what he was looking at since they were all the same.
After a while he returned.
“We will take the third from the right,” he said.
The ship looked like all the others but whatever. It was enough for about 15 people, so caravel sized more or less. It had ship sails like those on water but on the sides, you could see large propellers spinning to keep the ship afloat. The front was adorned with metal plates that seem more like decoration than armor while the rest was wood.
Rust nodded before he started doing something and asked Techno to allow him to download something.
After a bit it was done and he led us out. I connect to Techno since I was curious.
“What did you download?” I asked him.
“Ship ownership documents.” he said.
We followed quietly until we were led to a large building near the city walls. The inside had robots setting up a workshop while others set up some monitors. Seemed computer systems were back online.
As they were turned on one by one I saw how primitive they were. It made our normal PC’s looked like high grade stuff.
“This will be a larger download than the other. This one is all the blueprints we have that were developed from technology taken from you. Your things will be brought here as well. Cast iron is in the storage as well as steel parts. There are enough for various bodies if needed. If you need anymore, you will need to purchase.” Rust said
Techno nodded before they both fell silent. I could see a grin appeared on Techno’s face so I was guessing there are a lot of blueprints.
I sat down with Nova and chatted about the time she spent with him during their week.
Techno PoV
Ah how it nice it felt to get payback on that snotty bitch. Not only that, I also gained so much from it. So much was made with stuff related to our tech. Ship parts, weapons, body parts, dwarf gear, so many things.
This would speed things up by so much. First thing I needed to do was repair our bodies to some degree. I also needed to replace my corrupted codes. I was sure that Gaia and Delta are the only clockworks that didn’t have corrupted codes.
As soon as I finished the download Rust rushed off to get his own work done. He seemed rather stressed but when you think of it, it's not so strange. He was working under that idiot synthoid so he must do all her work while she is the face of the government.
I pulled the cast iron parts from the storage. Gears, plates, weapon parts, they were all there. I looked through the schematics and found Nova’s sniper and all the sniper models after hers. They all had level restrictions but since she was probably level 26 I looked at the lowest level ones.
My own model which was finished could still be called a prototype compared to the new ones.
The lowest level one before my own was level 30 so I couldn’t do anything except fix hers up.
I spent a while changing part by part for new ones literally rebuilding her body.
The elemental idiots, I let them go explore the town since they were a nuisance and the repairs would take a while so Bulk went with them.
Once I was done with Nova, I started on myself.
I used all my drones and the repairs were done somewhat faster. My tools needed parts replaced as well but nothing serious like my body.
A while later Bulk returned and I remade his body.
Looking at our stats with cast iron, I guessed that from the 60% stat reduction we had already gained back about 15%.
Since we were stuck in there a while, we went outside. Bulk and the others had found a kind of farm area that was built during the rapid time-skip. Several monsters were inside but none aggressive unlike the ones that were outside of the town.
We spoke with those in the town. I noticed that they acted a bit differently to us compared to the other players.
While some NPCs would outright insul
t the players for being idiots who consider the NPCs simple programs, to us they offered light bows and smiled as if greeting a high-ranking noble.
When I thought about it, it could have been the effect of helping so many races in the past. Clockworks did gain a lot of fame because of us so to see all the races act that way towards us wasn’t strange. Well not all the races. We met with a few demons and ogres and they couldn’t care less about us treating us like the other players.
We returned to the workshop after a while. Nova was tired so I let her go to sleep and Bulk went back out with the elementals who didn’t want to stay in the workshop.
With the place nice and quiet I began repairing Nova’s weapons. The guns were rusted over and broken so I had to remake them. I made a better model that was for level 20 and up. It was an arm rifle like her own but much more stable and wouldn’t get stuck as much. I made sure to repair the sniper as well since it was her main weapon.
I then turn to the protector. In my head, I had several models for different situations. Nova’s model was a scout model, so it was fast. I wanted to keep that so I pulled up an upgraded version of a scout protector and started upgrading. I needed to replace a good number of small gears but besides that nothing else was bad. His upgrades were more suspension systems and weapons upgrades. The engine also got better after I improved his coding.
Then I turned to Hino. There were few advancements except for making robots to rush in. The skeleton and engine were improved. I looked around the workshop and found a few old weapons that were on our old ship.
I took one I liked and began repairing it before opening Hino up and remodeling the space that would hold the weapon.
Two weapons were added and I added Proto’s suspensions on his legs which would improve his speed and rushing power.
The turtle was left in a corner. It was a simple forge, I would need to remodel the furnace soon though. I had lots of things I could improve.
Still, we needed levels and stats. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring them back without grinding.
With our weapons and systems back online and upgraded with all the programs I had made during my month outside, we were ready to start grinding. Through Rust we were told of several robot dens near the city so we headed out for some grinding.
Gaia PoV
“That asshole! To think he would take advantage of my kindness with such a straight face. I want to make him into a roll of cheese. My fist is really itching to punch someone but I force it down since I have lots of work to do. This bastard had better get his stuff ready and fast cause I want to leave this hell hole I created for myself. Ah how I miss the battlefield where I could punch someone and watch their bodies explode from the pressure. Man I miss the wars. It’s so boring now.” I thought.
“It’s best not think of wars so lightly Gaia.” Delta said.
“Shut it brat. I can think of them however I want. It’s better than being stuck pencil pushing while that idiot clockwork gets to have all the fun traveling the world.” I huffed.
“And yet you gave him everything he asked for. What is keeping him here?” Delta asked.
“His pathetic level and body. Also, he doesn’t know how to make magic alloys so I still have a trump card to get a bit of payback on him.” I replied with a grin feeling better.
“You are a worse brat than me you know. Grow up a bit and don’t keep trying to get payback. It will only end far worse for you. You saw how Techno gets payback. You said you flipped him back during the first awakening. Look what it got you. Don’t do something stupid girl, he isn’t so merciful to think he can’t get you back. Even if he has to wait a few months and years he will come back and bite back hard.” he replied
“Stop being a worry wart. I will be ready next time. If he wants payback, he should be ready for a battle he won’t see coming.” I said and was made to get back to work.
CHAPTER 7 Wrecking
Techno PoV
With our bodies fixed we went to see Gaia to see if she could tell us what monsters she had heard about we could fight in our level range.
I also wanted to see how she was acting and try to piss her off even more.
We got to the government building and without any of the guards stopping us we headed inside and knocked on the door to her room.
A robot opened and we saw her at her desk typing away at the primitive keyboard with somewhat scary speed.
Without diverting her eyes from the screen she started talking.
“If you’re here just to piss me off, I will have the guards throw you out like they throw out the trash.” she said coldly while information ran over her eye in a very rapid manner.
“Tell us where we can find a dungeon to fight in so we can reach level 30 fast.” I asked
“Good luck finding one within a 20 km radius of this town. The tanks and knights cleared them out ages ago and even now keep going back to make sure no new random robot took up residence and was growing,” she snorted.
I frowned hearing that but before I could type anything to send she continued.
“That was why we built a training center. The dwarves remembered your method of training those three behind you and started doing that sometime after you left. I took it to the next level and made a workshop for tinkers to train programming, body construction and tinkering with the clockwork drones used for training. We have a variety, the training center is on the northeast side of town. Now shoo.” She waved her hands while saying shoo which pissed me off.
I was going to have to get her back for that. Still, we didn’t deny the invitation to the place. We needed quick levels so we were going to trash the drones there and I could even train my body construction and tinkering skill at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
We left without causing too much of a stir like we did the first time and headed to the northeast area. The practice field was a huge circular area with nothing but countless drones. Near the start were barely working level 1 clockwork combat robots. As we continued, they got stronger and more repaired.
By the time we reached a third of the way, the robots were completely repaired and level 10. From there, they branched into classes like knights, scouts, marksmen, miners and so on. The miners looked rather scary.
In the middle of all this we could see tons of people fighting it out with one robot or another. Only parties actually fought more than one robot at a time so there was a kind of setting to these bots.
When we reached the middle, we found a building there. We went in and found a large workshop with dwarves and clockworks all over the place.
We were confused on who to talk to but that was resolved when a dwarf came up to us. One we knew somewhat.
“Yo, how can we help?” Victor said,
“Hey Victor, long time no see?” Bulk said.
“Do I know you guys?”
“Wow shorty doesn’t remember us!” Nova said and laughed.
As soon as she said that the workshop stopped and looked over with everyone grinning and holding the laugh in.
“Urg, I remember that cheeky blunt reply. Nova right, so that means the two hulking masses of metal are Techno and Bulk.” He groaned.
“There we go, so how are things?” Bulk asked.
“Boring, all I've been able to do is train on the bots and repair them,” he said.
I poked him and he looked a bit at me before he understood and lowered the glass visors on his helmet.
“You could leave and travel.” I said.
“To travel through the mountains, you need nearly one month on foot to reach the shipyard city where the human settlement once was. Even with the clean-up from the tanks, the mountains are still dangerous. Only a ship can make it through safely and quickly.” he said bluntly.
I thought a lot for a few moments. I had nothing against him and considering how he was the one that came to me meant that he still had some fame as an old leader. Also counting the fact that dwarves are faster than others on a forge a
nd his skills were probably already better than mine it could be profitable for me as well.
“Why not come with us? I need someone good on the forge. It would make my production faster since I am the only one smithing for now.” I asked.
“Wha!! No way you asked yourself!” Bulk exclaimed.
“You sure?” Victor asked cautiously.
“We already have a ship thanks to my connection to Gaia. Once we reach level 30 again, we will make steel bodies and go dungeon hunting to regain the rest of them.”
“I see, considering you are a machine, a smith would be more like a healer to you guys.” Victor analyzed nodding slowly.
I nodded.
He scratched his bearded cheek while he thought about it.
“What levels you guys at right now?” he asked.
“I’m 27.” Bulk replied.
“I’m 24 and Nova is 26.” I replied.
“Get to level 30 today and I'll join ya. I don’t want some weak party I know will do things slow.” he said.
I grinned at his challenge. We were going to outdo ourselves for sure.
“Fine, get your things ready. What is the current level range?”
“This way.” he said waving for us to follow.
He led us to a board with a circle drawn on it. The circle was divided by three lines. One that represented the closest area near the town went from level 1 to level 10. The second one that went near the back was from 11-25 and the last one was from 26-50.
“Here it is. This is the makeup of the training field. The first and second zone is filled with passive combat drones and if you are alone, even if you hit two or more drones they won’t all fight you. In the third area it's not the same though. The drones there are made to attack in simple group attacks and use coordinated strategies depending on which drones are fighting.” he explained.
“Wow this is really nice. So this is how the place is set up.” Bulk said excitedly.
“So are we going to fight around here in level 2?” Blaze asked.
The Return Page 6