The Return

by Nathan Valerio

  The dungeon I scouted was small and seemed to be the lowest level one in the area. The range was level 65-90 and had earth monsters in it. I was going to take this chance to power up Brock who was currently lacking. The toughest upgrade was the fire elementals. Maybe I can change their race by feeding them an earth core making them magma golems.

  Well it didn’t really matter. We would simply have them leech off the fire from the ship engine for a bit. It was slow but it would work for a bit. When we encountered a forest fire or a fire monster, maybe a dragon, they could eat its flames and get a quick boost.

  After thirty minutes and several breaks to let Brock gather mana, we finally reached the forest floor. Waiting at the base of the mountain were all our drones. We picked all of them up and stored them away. We really needed flying ones to carry them up. Still, with the path that wouldn’t be a worry anymore.

  I led the guys through the forest and like before, Brock was moving the earth along with all the trees creating a packed dirt road.

  It was a straight shot to the east of the plateau we settled on. We didn’t find monsters, but the sound of birds was clear. Sometimes we spotted a flying fish overhead as it blocked the sunlight for a moment. The same sky sharks Gaia ‘fished’ with Nova back during the beta phase were found here but bigger.

  I was sure that her shots would take at least 60% of the HP but it wouldn’t kill it. It was simply too big compared to the other one.

  We could probably kill it if I shot some grenades into its mouth and but I didn’t know how many it would take to make it blow up from the inside.

  We soon reached the cave entrance. It was quite large. About five meters high, seven long and it continued that size inside.

  The blast turtle fit easily inside.

  “Careful guys. The dungeon monsters are double our level. Don’t get cocky, we have weapons, but we also have limited ammo. Victor, you be prepared to start making more if the fight drags on. I will use the Yasha body to help if needed,” I warned them.

  “Got it captain,” he nodded.

  “The rest are fighting. Get ready.”

  I made Asura’s grenade launcher and mini-gun arms open up revealing the large weapons. I saw Proto’s arm guns appear and Nova’s as well. She worked well with that thing since she fired guns making the protector copy her actions sometimes.

  Bulk readied the rifles on his arms and we finally entered the dungeon.

  CHAPTER 10 Dungeon Theory

  Victor PoV

  I knew things would get interesting following him.

  I got to join a high-level dungeon raid with real monsters. Not only that I was even allowed to make the little blast turtle into an armored vehicle.

  Because the path that was being made by the earth golem was completely flat Techno revealed something that made me laugh.

  The turtle’s bulky metal legs lifted it up and two sets of wheels appeared from below. The legs were retracted. The wheels weren’t rubber but four really large gears one next to the other to make a single wheel and made of steel.

  The turtle would probably reach around 60 km/h like a slow car.

  If something happened, I would be able to retreat faster. I was told to keep the turtle safe. Since it was also our forge, it was really important especially for them.

  As we entered the dungeon, the road became a bit more bumpy.

  I wanted to get at the minerals in there. This whale was one big massive deposit of ores. We just needed to separate the veins.

  When the light from the outside started to fade, the lights from the clockwork’s eyes started to light the way. I pulled out two lamps and stuck them into my battle suit’s auxiliary entrances for gadgets. The lights lit everything in front of us. It was a bad idea. I think.

  As soon as the lights came on, we heard the screeching.

  It was deafening but when we looked up, we saw what it was. The roof was covered in hundreds of bats. Huge bastards about the size of a person.

  When I scanned it I saw the info. black cave bat. How the fuck was that considered a bat.

  Wait, considering every flying monster could come up from below they were probably the result of the mutations. Fuck.

  “Fire! Kill as many as we can quickly before they come down,” Techno ordered.

  I saw Asura Techno lift the middle and back pairs of arms up.

  Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

  From the arms at the back I saw three grenades fired from each arm. They went all over the place. As soon as they were near the room, all hell broke loose.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The new grenades couldn’t help but impress us with their power. Made from real black powder their power was second only to the real-world ones.

  Some twenty bats fell down after receiving the blast straight to the face.

  The others began to let go of the ceiling. I lifted the mini-gun to aim up and simply let loose. All of us did.

  DARARARARARARARA!

  All the mini-guns and automatic rifles were unloaded on the bats. The ones closest began dropping like flies and those behind were injured.

  It was then that I felt dizzy. I heard a really high-pitched sound from above.

  “They… use sonic… attacks.” The others didn’t hear me no one besides Brock who was in a similar situation to me.

  Damn, those clockworks must have turned off their hearing to block out any possible sonic attacks. Damn cheat race.

  I willed myself up through the nausea and started to fire at the ones I thought were sending the fucking noise our way. I saw Brock lift his right fist and punch the ground.

  The next moment the ceiling had spikes coming out which then began shooting down earth spikes.

  The damned noise stopped but was replaced with screams of pain. I saw the golem was breathing heavily. Must have taken a hell of a lot of MP for that attack. Still, because of it we got a great opening to those near the top. The girl was doing the most damage like I had expected. She was on the protector robot jumping up the walls while shooting her semi auto rifles on her arm and the protector who was mimicking her was firing off the mini-guns on its arms.

  Soon a swarm of nearly 200 fucked up bats were dead after they became desperate.

  Your party has killed a swarm of black cave bats.

  2 levels gained.

  Those things were enough to get me two levels.

  At level 32, I was still behind the others. They gained two levels as well. This place was a good grinding zone, but the problem was ammo. We went from one to the next removing wings, fangs, hide, bones, and surviving bullets.

  All were stored in our inventory to see if they had use later. The bullets were mostly crushed from piercing the hard skins, so we had to melt them again. I made ingots from the used bullets and left them ready. We had enough ammo to fight another swarm of those things. After that I would need about half an hour with Techno to remake all the bullets.

  With the lights already on and two lights also put on the back of the turtle we could watch our front and back now.

  We continued for a bit before Brock called out, “Hey guys, I feel something.”

  “Feel? What?” Bulk looked over to the golem.

  “Vibrations. In the ground, it's a race skill which lets me feel for nearby creatures that are moving around and making enough vibrations. The creatures are coming this way and fast,” Brock said pointing the direction they were coming from which was naturally the front.

  We turned forwards and that’s when I heard it. Like some fast wheel rolling through.

  Then from the bend up ahead it appeared. Spinning at high speeds, a rock ball skillfully made the turn. 15 others followed it.

  “STAND BACK!” Brock shouted and fell to his knees before hitting his hands on the ground. A large ramp rose, and the rocks flew into the air and slammed into the high ceiling before falling back down.

  All of them fell and opened up. They were armadillo like monsters. Their she
lls were rocks but the inside was an animal. Without losing a chance Techno moved in and began shooting at the belly with his mini-gun and the two front arms which held rifles. Nova followed behind and I turned the turtle and started to fire as well.

  They were the easiest monster we killed.

  They also only filled my experience bar by 20% which meant they were weak.

  Still, I guessed it was because the golem stunned them by having them slam into the ceiling then drop down again to the ground. In any other case they would probably run us over like a stampede of bulls.

  We broke off the shells which I was dying to get my hands on. Those things might make great alchemy ingredients to mix with steel armor.

  Like all other animals, the claws and fangs were removed but after searching there wasn’t much else except the monster meat.

  We got some since I needed food. Brock could eat but he can survive off rocks as well.

  We continued and entered a large room. It had light coming in from several cracks in the ceiling and from one of them was a small waterfall which landed into a small pond which then ran down the room splitting it in two. The stream was small not even a meter long and shallow. The pond was about three meters in diameter and had clear water. All over the wall and floor around the pond and stream, moss grew but where sunlight hit a few blades of grass or flowers appeared.

  “Not bad, this place looks like a resting spot. I bet anyone else would take too much damage from those monster attacks and this room was made to rest in. Gather water so you can build up the used steam. Also fill the tanks we made so we can have surplus water.” Techno ordered.

  We did as he said. I moved the turtle near the water and jumped off. I did a bit of maintenance and then with a bucket I filled up the water tank inside the big shell.

  While we repaired and filled up, I took my time remaking the bullets and passing them around just to be safe. A drawn out battle would kill us so it was better to be prepared.

  With everything done we headed on after making the turtle carefully walk over the stream and continued into the dungeon.

  Bulk PoV

  The dungeon was rather interesting. It used surprise attacks to kill its opponent. The monsters were higher level but with obvious weaknesses. Bats have weak bodies which could easily be downed by explosives and shooting. Long-range attacks seemed to be the best but attacking from above worked great as well.

  Armadillos are very powerful and would be really devastating if it wasn’t for the fact that they did a mad dash at us without care. Because of that it was easy to stun them by sending them flying into the ceiling or wall and having them fall down hard. Their bodies are heavy so it doesn’t help them.

  We found lots of them but all of them ended the same. The armadillos we harvested since they came in smaller numbers. The leveling also seemed slower than from the time during the beta. It might have been a fix. We weren’t getting as much experience as we had before even though we killed lots of monsters.

  With three swarms of bats we only got four more levels. Nova and I reached level 42 already, and Techno was two levels behind. Brock was at the same level as Techno and Victor was level 35.

  It was clear that the experience needed for leveling was much higher than what we had before. We did fight some large creatures though before. The magma golem and we saved four races all of which gave us some levels. Because of Gaia we had to do some sky fishing which made a bit of an increase.

  All in all, we never actually fought monsters in our level range without someone strong enough to protect us if there was something strong.

  For the moment, we were returning to the base. We were going to sleep during the night because monsters were stronger at night. That had been a solid rule in all games since who knows when.

  On the way out, we found a few monsters that spawned but not the full swarm. They died easily and we left. We casually walked through the path we made.

  We weren’t in any hurry. We reached the ship after night fall and found several torches lighting up the area.

  Entering from the lowered hatch in the lowest deck and we went to bed. Techno said he set himself and Nova to react to movement that wasn’t from our party. I could log out and rest up.

  Since it was noon already, I logged out and went to eat and get stuff I needed done.

  It was just the basics but I still needed to wait a bit more than an hour and a half before returning or I would have to wait too long.

  When I returned, the guys were waking up and we went back to the dungeon for the day. We gained another four levels. The experience was really small for those monsters despite being a higher level than us. I started to think there was something behind that. Maybe the more familiar to a monster we became the less experience we got. We hunted the entire day but got the same amount of experience that we got from three hours of hunting the day before.

  We left in a somewhat sour mood since it had turned out like that. When I mentioned the theory, the others seemed to agree. In real life, after you get used to something it gets less difficult no matter what it was before. The greatest amount of experience was from the first time done so after that it would give less and less.

  I think it was so that we wouldn’t stay in one place. A system made to make people truly adventure the world and not stay in the safety of the few cities that were built.

  As we were returned sour about the theory, we were stopped by Brock on the way.

  “Hey guys, someone is coming this way. It’s small and weak but it’s running on two legs and running desperately.” Brock said.

  “What is it?” Nova asked curious and excited.

  “Don’t know.” The golem shrugged

  “Let's get ready to shoot it.” Victor said.

  Victor armed his mini-gun and with Brock’s instruction we aimed at the spot it would come in from.

  Soon we heard the bushes moving and the cracking of branches. When Brock made the path it also pushed the underbrush to the sides making a small wall of plants.

  At once a small girl jumped through the bushes into the circle and froze. She was breathing deeply from running.

  I looked at her trying to understand what she was. She was a girl that looked about 12 and was still developing but she already had developed leg muscles made for running and some build on the arms and abs. What threw me off though was that she had a thin coat of fur over her entire body. Over her belly the fur was white but on her back it was orange with black stripes. On her back was a long tail and on her head was a set of cat ears.

  Her fingernails were long and claw like and she had short sharp fangs in her mouth.

  She looked at us slightly scared but then we heard a new noise from above.

  She suddenly jumped and a ball of fire fell where she was. Like a started cat, she landed just in front of both Techno and looked at him with tears building in her eyes.

  “PLEASE!! SAVE ME!”

  CHAPTER 11 The Clockwork’s Wrath

  Techno PoV

  “PLEASE!! SAVE ME!”

  Before any of us could reply, six figures dropped down and landed inside a cloud of dust.

  As it cleared up, we saw what they were. Unlike the girl who was stark naked except for her fur which covered her body, these creatures were different.

  First off, they were clothed with armor made from what looked to be made of armadillo shells in a fashion that made scaled armor. Second was that they were lizardmen, no it was different. These creatures could be compared to them, but they weren’t the same. They had lizard like bodies but around the edge of the eyebrows and on the head were horns and spikes ran down their backs along their spines. Closing behind all of them were big wings that propelled them all here. If I had to, I’d say they were closer to the draconian race.

  Seeing the six figures the girl hid behind both of my bodies.

  The one who seemed to be the leader walked up. He was about 10 cm bigger and had rougher scales and red scales while the others had green.


  “Hand over that little bitch slave at once and leave!” he said it with the arrogance of someone who had lived in a high position and looked down on others.

  It quickly pissed me off because it reminded me of ‘her’. My frown could now show on my face and it did so on both of them.

  “What do you want with her?” Bulk asked.

  “Silence you insolent whelp. I will not speak with mongrels. Just return that bitch and we shall let you all leave alive!” the leader cursed at us.

  Suddenly the protector took a step forward. “NO! You won’t take the cute kitty away. You’re all bad guys!” Nova shouted.

  In seconds the protector had its guns armed and primed to shoot at all six. They wouldn’t last long against that onslaught. The armor wasn’t complete and had many openings which I’m sure she would aim for using her rifles while the mini-guns distract them.

  “A little brat like you shouldn’t play with big guns.” the leader laughed.

  On his last word he turned to Nova and opened his mouth. He began to release fire from his mouth like a dragon. Just as the fire started to come out they didn’t notice the hulking robot that ran too quickly to react and did a spin before lifting the right leg and connecting right into his mouth, breaking all the spiked lizard teeth and causing his head to lurch back and throwing him to the ground.

  The next moment the sound of unsheathing swords were heard. Everyone looked at the source and saw my Asura body armed with its six blades.

  “Judgment for attacking my sister. Guilty! Penalty! Death!” I said that in a robotic monotone voice, but my rage was clearly shown.

  The six draconians tried to run and turned around while spreading their wings as a result each of them had their backs turned.

  None of them saw the robot approach and stab five of my swords through the midsection of their tails and pin it to the ground.

  I let go of the swords and one by one I stomped on them, pushing the swords deeper into the ground, forcing them to sit back or rip their own tails to escape.