Once again, something felt different. Deep inside, she could feel a warmth that drove away her concern over Mari’s injury. Feeling conflicted over that unusual emotion, she turned her eyes back to her lover and scanned her vitals again.
Nothing. Just the injury to her side, which was already beginning to knit back together with unnatural speed and ease.
Kris wasn’t sure how to take that. She’d seen Mari using the nanites before, and they seemed to need a schematic for anything they created. Mari hadn’t made anything of the sort, so she had to admit she felt more than a little shocked.
“Are you doing better?” She voiced her concerns as Mari stood and pulled her up in turn.
“A bit better, yeah. I used some knowledge from Marielle, but I don’t feel it’s time to explain. We really should keep moving.” Mari gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before turning back to the hallway that led to their previous encounter.
I really need to keep an eye on her. She’s being way too cavalier.
Silently, the advance team made their way back to the corpse of the behemoth.
“We need a good solution to larger enemies. What did you come up with, Vilke?”
Kris couldn’t help the shiver of excitement over Mari’s commanding tone. She felt the blush reach her cheeks as she tried to push that reaction away and get her game face on. She chose to busy herself with checking over her weapons.
She took out the cylindrical magazine for her experimental weapon and placed the expended core she’d been using back in, using the device in the weapon to check the recharge rate for the cores.
Kris had tested and learned what she could about mana spheres from an early point in her testing. A sphere, to her knowledge, seemed to accelerate the growth of mana, allowing them to recharge a bit faster than the usual insidious growth of mana. A secondary benefit was how the radius as a parameter constraint limited that accelerated growth, even if that didn’t stop the cores from infecting everything around them eventually. She just hadn’t really gotten an idea for how size affected the recharge rates yet.
[3%]
Kris frowned at the reading she received. It had read four percent before she had ejected it earlier. Unless the energy had been sapped by something without her notice, the percentage should only increase with time for the mana to spread again. At the rate she was seeing, if it lost more, the entire sphere would go inert and need to be infused with fresh mana again.
She ejected the sphere and placed it into a small sealed pocket in her sleeve. Then she stared at the reading for the next core in the weapon.
[99%]
Why did they all bleed off a percent of their mana?
She ejected that sphere and saw the same from the next and the last cores. She had a whole new mystery to figure out, and yet she had no time or instrumentation to study it.
“Kris?” Mari poked her on the nose, and Kris crossed her eyes at the finger. Then she snapped her teeth at it with a playful expression.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Rarrrr!” She giggled cutely as Mari raised an eyebrow at her antics. “Hey, now! It’s less fun when you don’t play back.”
She made sure to pout as cutely as possible.
Mari stepped aside, pointing at the corpse at their feet. “Somehow, it doesn’t feel like the right time. I’d hate for your mother to see us fooling around when we should be hurrying along.”
“Right, sorry.” Kris finally took in the room, feeling a little sheepish at how absent-minded she had been.
On the floor, being gathered up by Relkur, were a trio of heavy metal objects attached to sturdy chains. They looked like huge mechanical toothed jaws.
“What are those?”
“I modified the idea of a bear trap. The chains can be anchored down by Relkur directly into the stonework. These should help us to pin down any more of those behemoths.” Mari nodded at the jaws in satisfaction. “I don’t trust explosives, and I’m no bomb expert to get them right anyway. Hate to cave the ceiling in or something, too. Maybe Barclay can help with that in the future.”
Kris nodded in thought, studying the jagged maws closely and noting the teeth being made of something more dense and sharper than the rest of the construction. “Interesting idea. I have to admit this beats walking next to someone carrying around volatile explosives she doesn’t know how to properly make. I appreciate one less unusual form of suicide to worry about from you. And maybe, if I’m lucky, you’ll avoid being thrown around by huge monsters, too. Just a thought.”
Kris winked playfully, and noticed a change in Mari’s status when it appeared by accident. She didn’t think she was the type of person who winked often, which was why she’d set the lenses to react to gestures like those. She could only groan internally at the new habit she’d given herself.
[Companion: Mari Kishibe]
[Status: Minor Abdominal Injury]
[Disposition: Friendly/Romantic]
[Details:]
- Race: Bio-engineered Human
- Current Mission: Eliminate ‘Weeds’ in the Garden (15 Remaining)
- Enhanced Bone Structure, Enhanced Musclusature, Biotech Contact Lenses
There was a new indicator for the remaining ‘weeds’ that needed to be eliminated. But only one thing had changed since she’d last checked. They had killed two of the afflicted. She had no idea what ‘the Garden’ was in reference to, but there was suddenly more for her to worry over than she’d first realized.
“Can you give me a hand with this?” Mari drew her from her thoughts (again!) by handing her a small device that Kris immediately attached to her lover’s back. An inertial dampener.
Kris felt a bit of her stress bleed away at the sight and knowledge that something of that caliber would help Mari avoid things like the slice across her side from earlier.
Then, without any more preamble, they turned as a group towards the next hallway.
And promptly stopped at the sight of a small rodent rolling around in the small puddle of blood from the ceiling leak.
Without a word, Kris aimed, lined up the tracking line of her HUD, then pulled the trigger back gently, feeling the weapon steady with her left hand to brace it.
There was a faint hiss as the kinetic force of the magic impacted the rat and shredded it into two pieces. Kris felt a little bit of revulsion at the gore, since the puddle was beyond Mari’s radius, but she supposed she shouldn’t feel any surprise over it. The holes her weapon had made in the behemoth had a diameter of two centimeters each. That was more than enough to bisect a small creature.
She peeked at Mari’s status and frowned.
- Current Mission: Eliminate ‘Weeds’ in the Garden (14 Remaining)
That seemed like proof positive. They could talk about it later, but she knew she didn’t like the implications. It also bothered her that they might spend hours just trying to track down a single elusive mouse or something, either. Kris really wished they had more leeway to discuss, but they had to get moving.
“Let’s go. If we can surprise more of those things, I’ll handle them” She received a round of nods at her words, and they set off.
The moment Mari’s radius reached the leaking ceiling, the red tinge to the coolant fluid vanished into mist, and the droplets ran clear.
Mari chewed her lip, then handed out more spare ammunition for Vilke, leaving some other fresh ammo on the ground for their support team in the rear.
There, they rounded the corner and saw their first milestone: the stairwell up to sublevel three.
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